Rs. 40 million upmarket tea shop in Colombo

By Hiran H.Senewiratne

One of Sri Lanka’s top tea exporters, Venture Tea (Pvt) Limited, has invested Rs 40 million in an upmarket exclusive tea shop in Colombo, to promote its tea among tourists and local consumers, its director said.

“We, being one of the top 20 tea exporters, have developed a global brand for our company known as Tarlton, which is now being exported and available in 44 plus countries. Therefore, in order to make our presence felt in the local market, we have opened our first exclusive tea shop in our own building in York Street Colombo, Director, Ventre Tea, Stephen Thuring told The Island Financial Review.

Thuring said that the company is mainly into value added tea exports rather than bulk tea exports. ‘Most encouraging factor was that recently the Sri Lanka Tea Board provided Rs 20 million to plan and promote our flagship brand “Tarlton” globally. This has really helped us to put the company on the right track in the tea export business, he said.

Thuring added: “We have a strategic plan to promote our brand as a major global brand and for that matter more government backing and support is needed to achieve the target. At present, the tea industry is going through some issues, mainly a drop in the tea crop in the last few years that has really affected exports.

‘Accordingly, certain statistics reveal that there is a 15 percent to 20 percent acute drop in the crop due to fertilizer issues, labour shortages and selling out of small tea estates, which are now non- operational.

‘The government should take some initiative to develop the infrastructure in tea growing areas to promote tea plantations and manufacturing of tea in those areas.’