Norwegian BOI enterprise Jiffy Products opens new regional office

Frank Skarpnes - Director of Manufacturing; Chief Guest Thorbjørn Gaustadsæther - Ambassador to Norway in Sri Lanka and the Maldives; Shantha Kumara - Deputy Director, MEPZ; Ruwan Rajapakse - Managing Director; and Sandeeptha Gamalath - former Managing Director (Current Regional Sales Director) 

BOI-approved enterprise Jiffy Products S L Ltd. recently ceremonially opened a new regional office within the Mirigama Export Processing Zone.

Jiffy Products is the Sri Lankan subsidiary of Jiffy International AS Kristiansand, Norway. Jiffy International AS is a transnational company which is engaged in manufacturing, sales and distribution of plant propagation substrate systems and related horticultural products globally.

Jiffy Products S L was incorporated in 2003 as a BOI project. The main attraction of Sri Lanka is the availability of coir fiber pith which is derived from coconut husks. This product has become increasingly popular all over the world as a medium to propagate and grow plants.

JPSL began its operations at the Mirigama Export Processing Zone as a BOI project and it has since then extended its operation to four locations of which two are in the Mirigama Export Processing Zone with the other two in Pannala and Kobeigane in the North Western Province.

Currently JPSL is the leading manufacturer of plant propagation coco products in Sri Lanka. This project is very significant because it is a Norwegian investment. While Norway is not a member of the EU, it is closely associated as a member of the European Economic Area. With the growing interest of the European Union in Sri Lanka as a result of the return of the GSP + facility, products such as those manufactured by this enterprise will become more competitive and therefore more attractive to consumers.

This in turn can lead to an increase in investments by companies such as Jiffy in Sri Lanka.

Chief Guest Thorbjørn Gaustadsæther, Ambassador to Norway in Sri Lanka and the Maldives, addressing the opening, said: “I am pleased that Jiffy International AS has opened its regional office for Asia in Sri Lanka. As an established Norwegian company, the success that you see has been achieved due to the hard work, commitment and dedication of the management and the workforce of both Jiffy Norway and Jiffy Sri Lanka. Jiffy directly and indirectly employs over 10,000 people in Sri Lanka. Since these investments are outside of Colombo, this business has changed people’s lives by creating jobs and bringing prosperity to communities in more remote areas. I take this opportunity to wish Jiffy success and continued prosperity and growth for the company and its people.”

Today, Jiffy has the capacity to produce 17,000 MT of coco substrate volume per annum and export their value added Jiffy-7C pellets, Grow Block, Grow Bags and many others products mainly to Europe, Canada, the US, Japan and India covering 40 different countries in all continents.  

Currently the company directly and indirectly employs about 10,000 people and pumps over Rs. 1 billion into the Sri Lankan economy in terms of raw material purchases and direct and indirect employment to  the service sector. A total of 90% of raw material requirement in production is sourced locally. 

The core strategy of Jiffy Sri Lanka is to add value to the raw material (coir fiber pith and husk chips) rather than exporting this valuable resource as unprocessed bulk material.