The Sri Lanka Food Processors Association (SLFPA) successfully held its first Webinar session targeting the SME’s involved in the Food Processing sector on 30th May 2020. The rationale behind this decision was that SLFPA felt it is duty bound to help & motivate the SME’s who were the worst hit due to the after-effects of COVID 19. A sizeable portion of the membership attended this session.
Mr. Mario De Alwis – Founder member of SLFPA & the Chairman of Mas Tropical Foods Pvt Ltd acted as the moderator while the panelists were Mr. A Ranjith - Secretary – Ministry of Industries & Supply chain Management, Mr.Delano Dias – Vice President of SLFPA & CEO of Millers Ltd, Mrs. Shirley Jayawardane – President Federation of Chamber of Commerce & Industries of Sri Lanka, Mr.Dhammika Gunasekara – Past President of SLFPA & Managing Director Tropical Life Pvt Ltd & Mr.Gammika De Silva - Head of Marketing & Sales at Seylan Bank PLC.
A free Awareness session organized by the Sri Lanka Food Processors Association (SLFPA) was held last year at the Auditorium of the Ministry of Industries, targeting mainly the SMEs was a huge success with over 100 participants attending. An important Q & A session was conducted & lots of valuable ideas were exchanged. The guest speakers were Dr. Sapumal Dhanapla from the Ministry of Health, Mrs. Harini Rajadasa ( Regulatory affairs manager –Uni Lever Sri Lanka-member of SLFPA) and Mrs. Sashi Sooriyaarachchi (Head of Regulatory affairs-Nestle Lanka-member of SLFPA ).
The colour coding regulation was introduced by the Government taking into consideration the health concerns especially among the young & the teenage generation on NCDs namely Diabetes, heart related disorders and also obesity . This regulation would keep the consumers more informed as the new labels would give a range from desirable to undesirable levels of salt, sugar & fat contents of the products enabling the consumer to make a choice during the time of purchasing. From the industry side the main concern raised so far is the cost factor in redoing the display labels & the funds they have to allocate for testing to arrive at the content levels to be displayed on the labels. With some active persuasion along with the SLFPA, the industry had managed to get a grace period until end June this year. The earlier implementation date was June 1st 2019.