Sri Lankaโs national food and packaging expo, Pro Food Pro Pack has, in a short span of 15 years, grown to become one of largest such South Asian expos to be held.
โAs we launch the 15th exhibition in the Pro-food Pro Pack series we can be satisfied that this has become one of the largest food, beverages, packaging and ย agri-business fairs in South Asiaโ said Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen on 12 August in Colombo.
Minister Bathiudeen was addressing the launch event of the 15th Pro-food Pro Pack exhibition series by his Ministry with Sri Lanka Food Processors Association (SLFPA) on 12 August at BMICH, Colombo. The international processed food, beverage, packaging, and agricultural exhibition called today as โPro Food Pro Pack Agri Bizโ was originally commenced by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce in 2001 as Pro Food Pro Pack. ย This yearโs event packs 280 local and foreign exhibitors displaying 300 stalls with more than 100 foreign delegates coming from India, China, Holland, and Poland, along with an industry delegation from Qatar. Joining Minister Bathiudeen at the launch were Primary Industries Minister Daya Gamage, Deputy German Ambassador to Sri Lanka and Maldives Michael Dohmen, President of Sri Lanka Food Processors Association Maliek De Alwis and Chairman of National Agri Business Council Rizvi Zaheed.
โAs we launch the 15th Pro-food / Pro Pack we can be satisfied that this has become one of the largest food, beverages, packaging, and agri-business fairs in South Asia. This is also a one stop shop for business, trade and a networking platform for these sectors.ย There has been much progress in the processed food sector by way of improvements in technology, packaging, product development and marketing since the launch of this series in 2001 by our Ministry. It is also good to note that the local and overseas participation have been significantly improving and growingโ said Minister Bathuideen and added: โI am pleased to say that my Ministry has been actively promoting the food and packaging sector. The reason is that there is a great number of micro and SME enterprises active in this industry. In fact we believe that more than 40% of our SMEs are in food processing sector. This sector is therefore highly significant in our planning. Therefore my ministry has allocated more than Rs 60 million for 2017 in a number of projects for this sector. Among the proposed projects are skills development for food and packaging industries, marketing promotion program for processed food industries, green value addition for existing food industries in Sri Lanka, and more importantly introduction of an accredited food laboratory by IDB next year at a cost of Rs 35 million. We are looking to launch the IDB Lab in 2017 and the new lab can perform many well-known processed food tests such as Microbiology shelf life and โsalmonellaโ. These tests are also important to obtain SLS certifications for processed foods going to the stores. This lab is expected to perform at least 500 processed food tests per month. What is more important is that the services of this lab are made available at very low costs. With IDB we are also currently conducting a pilot project to upgrade Sri Lankan SME Food Processors to enhance their food manufacturing technology and international standards and also to move them one step above form their current SME status. That is for example upgrading small enterprises to become medium size and medium enterprises to become large scales.โ
A GIZ sponsored special attraction โNothern Kitchenโ is added to this yearโs Pro Food Pro Pack to showcase 30 Northern SME food producers to visiting global audience.
Leader of All Ceylon Makkal Congress