George Steuart Teas laid the founda- tion stone for a modern, state-of- the-art Tea processing and packag- ing facility in Thalwatta, Kelaniya. This complex will be built on a six-acre land extent and the building area will cover over 150,000 sq/feet. The facility will carry out tea and packing material storing, processing, blending, bagging and packaging. Further- more the manufacturing process follows ISO 9001:2015, ISO 22000:2018, HACCP, GMP and Organic standards. The storage area will have capacity to store over one million kilos of tea and will be equipped with a tem- perature controlled cold room to store herbs and flavors to preserve the freshness and quality. The complex is strategically lo- cated in close proximity to tea broker ware- houses, main highways to access the port, airport and other parts of the country. This will enable ease of logistics for Sri Lankan and international distribution.
The facility will be equipped with mod- ern, fully automated machinery including staple free tea bagging machines, blending machines, pouch machines and multi- layer storage racking systems. Interna- tional buyers will be able to do tea tasting sessions and also visit a miniature tea garden, which will complete the experience within the same location. Dilith Jayaweera, Chairman, George Steuarts said, “As the oldest tea company in Sri Lanka, we are very proud of our jour- ney thus far, and this venture will allow us to further show our commitment to promote Ceylon Tea to the world and to cater to global standards and requirements”. Dai Pathmanathan, MD, George Steuart Teas said, “We are happy to embark on this project to enable George Steuart Teas to further improve on quality standards, capac- ity and to efficiently serve our customers both internationally and locally”. Project partners include Access Engineering, Civil & Structural Engineering Consultants (CSEC) and George Steuart Engineering. The project is planned to be completed in 2022, first quarter at an esti- mated cost of US 10 million dollars
