Sri Lankan-born entrepreneur, Ermila Smith (nee Ermila Jayasuriya), from Cardiff, Wales, has won the “Best Product Design and Packaging” award, the “Women in Product Development” award and “Special Achievement” award in the British Female Inventor and Innovator of the Year competition - 2009.
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| Ermila Smith |
According to a report in The Western Mail, a UK newspaper, the competition is sponsored by the Welsh Assembly Government’s, Wales Innovators Network, which provides free advice and support to inventors and innovators and helps them develop concepts into commercial products.
This year, the competition recognised Ermila’s ingenuity in carving out a place in the beauty products market, by differentiating her product line through a unique packaging system, the paper said.
Ermila is the eldest child of Nalin Jayasuriya, Managing Director and CEO of McQuire Rens & Jones (Pvt) Ltd and the former Regional HR Consultant and Regional Head of HR Special Projects for Smithkline Beecham International, Southeast Asia and India and of Ranjani Jayasuriya, LLB, Attorney-at-Law and former Executive Director/General Manager, Housing Development Finance Corporation of Sri Lanka. Ermila launched her range of beauty and bath products, called Winter in Venice in 2006. Within a short a period of 12 months the business had turned over £1 million.
What differentiates Winter in Venice from the plethora of bath and beauty products in the market, is the presentation of the products.
Rather than simply packaging the toiletries in traditional acetate boxes with ribbons Ermila uses a range of different lifestyle related accessories to package her products. They are packaged in wooden pails, plant pots, fabric hat boxes or vanity boxes - which can all be re-used.
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| The range of products |
Winter in Venice is now sold in more than 800 stores in the UK including independent retailers, department stores and through on-line leaders like Amazon, who last year placed an order worth more than £1 million.
The young entrepreneur is also thinking about entering the Asian and Southeast Asian markets once the global economy starts recovering from the recession.
Ermila said that she can use Sri Lanka, the country of her birth, as a ‘pilot’ entry point to Asia and that it was possible to work out very attractive prices to penetrate these markets, the paper said.
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