Financial Times

Another Sri Lankan achievement!
Veggie burgers set new trend
By Quintus Perera
It may not be rare anymore. There is a breed of Sri Lankans who are quietly returning to their roots after spending many years overseas - to set up business here, share the technology they have learnt overseas or raise their families in a Sri Lankan environment.

Mohamed Ziauddin is a world acclaimed food scientist who has pioneered five internationally patented frozen food products. His company, Norfolk Foods, is now involved in technology transfer to India and to his former employer, Bernard Mathews (BM), one of the best food processing organizations in the UK with strong presence in Europe.

Ziauddin has also pioneered a vegetable sausage product whose sales have increased 10-fold since it was launched last year. Other companies are yet struggling to develop vegetable sausages.

Ziauddin is from Galhinna, Kandy. He went to England to study, learnt food sciences and technology and obtained post-graduate qualifications in Technological Sciences from the University of Sterling, UK.

He joined Bernard Mathews, a poultry range food processing company in the UK and Europe, and worked there for 13 years reaching the position of Development Director.

After enjoying the comfort of English life for 25 years, Ziauddin and his family returned to Sri Lanka in 1994 as he was keen to bring up his children in the same way he was brought up in Sri Lanka. He also thought of sharing his experiences with people here.

He set up a food processing company, Norfolk Foods (Pvt) Ltd (NF), at Katuwana Industrial Estate, Homagama with another local sponsor, with the intention of developing it on the lines of UK-based BM with the poultry range being the flagship product. He included the word "Norfolk" to show his gratitude to BM as the BM factory is located in Norfolk town in the UK.

He said, "I was in England for 25 years and I studied and was trained in that country before I came to Sri Lanka. I have to be grateful to that country and Bernard Mathews. So, I still work with them and I still hold patent rights of several products and my sharing technology with them is to show my respect and gratitude to Bernard Mathews."

Ziauddin said that the idea of setting up his own company in Sri Lanka came to his mind while he was at BM. Norfolk Foods is now a British - Sri Lankan - Moldovian joint venture.

Having left Sri Lanka during his childhood he was not familiar with business trends here and for this reason Norfolk struggled through a difficult period in the first six years.

Ziauddin and his family sacrificed almost everything to survive but with commitment and determination were able to turn the business around. "When I was pressurized with difficulties I had all the chance to go back to England and a luxurious life but I stuck it out as I had sacrificed a lot to come back," he added.

Like at Bernard Mathews, the Sri Lankan entrepreneur has been innovative and started his industry with a pioneering product, "Chicken Kieves" which contains liquid cheese in the centre. It is now patented in Sri Lanka and England.

There are a number of such innovative products manufactured in his factory to precise specification such as potato kieves, burgers, samosas and chicken galantines.

His products are mostly exported mainly to the Maldives, Bangladesh and India. NF's local sales provide 80 percent of the supply for five star hotels here.

Norfolk products satisfy international standards and the company also supplies multi-national processed food companies that have their outlets selling all over the country and thereby saving foreign exchange that would otherwise have been spent on imports.

Norfolk frozen foods like sausages, chicken ham, chicken bacon, cold cuts are also available in super markets. Its food range includes around 200 items. The newest addition is the vegetable sausages considered to be the first in the world, coming in three varieties; pumpkin, spinach and carrot.

"Our survival and success depended solely on satisfying customer needs and it has become the mainstay of our success," Ziauddin said. "We found that some children do not like to eat vegetable cooked afresh and now to satisfy that segment we introduced vegetable sausages. We commenced production 15 months ago and now have registered a 10-fold increase in consumption."

Even those who are promoting vegetarian products are still working on vegetable products. "I was at a meeting a few weeks ago with a US company and they too are still unable to formulate vegetable sausages."

The Sri Lankan factory is housed on a large extent of land and uses internationally accepted machinery to turn out the products. Ten acres of land have been acquired for future development to have a modern water treatment and sewage plant.

Once the new processing plant comes up, a major portion of their chicken needs could be purchased from local farmers. Four container loads of chicken are now imported per month. Norfolk expects to get 40 percent of their requirements locally and import the balance. Imports now come from France, Belgium and Australia.

Norfolk is now working out a programme whereby they could buy raw materials direct from local farmers. Ziauddin said the formula for Norfolk's success is in fielding experts in various areas in the industry and also having a very content and happy workforce.

"Our products are innovative and most of them are for the first time not only in Sri Lanka but also in the world," Zaiuddin commented. The company has about 14 items in the vegetarian product range.

He said that Norfolk products sales are gathering momentum in an increasingly health conscious consumer market. Commenting on the export market and as to why Norfolk products are not exported to the West, he said: "We are still satisfying the demand of the local market and countries within the region. It is better for the moment not to grapple with the huge barriers that one is confronted with when entering the Western market."

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