Sri Lankan firm Apeiron partners with POS to develop plant extract manufacturing site
The plant extracts will be used for food and nutraceuticals, and also fragrances, personal care products, air fresheners, deodorizers, pharmaceutics, massage therapy products and feed additives.
Apeiron specialises in cinnamon products and herbal goods.
“Sri Lanka – a tropical country with ample rainfall and rich soil conditions – is blessed with valuable agricultural products of premium taste and quality," said Apeiron chairman and managing director Ashoka Siriwardena.
“Our customers will benefit from the high quality plant extract products, tailor-made by POS technologies to suit unique needs. We are very excited to build on this opportunity.”
POS provides contract R&D, scale-up / process development, and toll processing services for various ingredient industries,
The company said the new facility would process raw materials from Sri Lankan farmers and employ local people.
By working together, the partnership will compliment a rapidly growing local economy with a robust export market network, it said.
“We are proud to be the first North American company working to establish this kind of facility in Sri Lanka,” says Dale Kelly, President and CEO of the POS Group of Companies.
“We see a lot of opportunity and potential here thanks to Free Trade agreements with neighbouring countries including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Maldives. Plus, easily accessible raw materials and access to internationally and locally owned independent testing facilities will help ensure quality products.”
The Sri Lankan facility is expected to be operational by the end of 2017.
Updates, including a website, will be available by the end of 2016.
POS hopes the new venture will do for Sri Lanka what canola oil did for the western Canadian economy.
Working with the Canadian government, POS helped develop the industry, which it says transformed the regional economy, the lives of farmers, and agricultural communities around the world.
Last year POS signalled its expansion intentions when it created a new US subsidiary, Batavia Bio Processing Limited, following the acquisition of an Illinois-based facility.
“This facility will help us better serve our clients, and will be operated as a contract R&D / toll processing centre,” Kelly said at the time . “Its technology and the upgrades made over the past five years will offer our clients a unique facility to create innovative new processes and products.”
Around 75% of the firm’s business is currently in the US.
