SLIP honours industry veteran Sathis Abeywickrama as Packaging Professional 2020

Sathis Abeywickrama receiving the Packaging Professional of the Year Award from SLIP Immediate Past President Anuradha Jayasinghe

Printing industry veteran Sathis Abeywickrama, Founder and Managing Director of Flexiprint Ltd., and its sister company Print USA Ltd., was recognised and honoured for his dedicated services to the printing and packaging industry by the Sri Lanka Institute of Packaging (SLIP) and bestowed the prestigious ‘Packaging Professional of the Year 2020’ Award at the Sri Lanka Packaging Awards – Lanka Star 2022 held at Hotel Galadari on 3 November. 

Giving credence to the trailblazing personality who revolutionised the industry with his vision, dedication, and leadership, Print USA Ltd., won 7 Bronze Awards, 4 Silver Awards and 4 Gold Awards while Flexiprint Ltd., won 6 Bronze Awards, 7 Silver Awards and 4 Gold Awards and a Platinum Trophy as the Overall Winner with the greatest number of winning entries in the corporate categories. Abeywickrama established his mark in the printed packaging industry both locally and internationally in his illustrious career of well over four decades. 

Abeywickrama started his career as a management trainee in sales and marketing at Aitken Spence Printing just after his A/L exams. There he decided to direct printing from commercial printing into printed packaging, supporting value-added Sri Lankan products. This was a time that new tea companies came into the market producing value-added tea products such as packeted teas and tea in bags. Thereafter, he left to pursue his own path. Working for a while as a print buyer, he started his own company, Print USA Ltd., utilising the exposure to the trade he received in marketing offset printed packages to the tea trade. 

With the success of Print USA Ltd., and with the tea market greatly embracing tea bags, Abeywickrama’s customers persuaded him to start producing the most important ingredients for the tea bag: teabag tags and teabag envelopes. He then started Flexiprint Ltd. in 1994, with the goal of offering locally produced, premium printed tea tags and tea envelopes to the value-added tea trade. 

“My goal was to support value-added Sri Lankan products such as tea, rubber, spices, and lately garments, through quality printed offset packaging. Today, Flexiprint and Print USA have joined hands and have become great catalysts to the tea trade and other value-added Sri Lankan product trades, becoming well-renowned names worldwide. The two companies now export to the Far East Indian subcontinent, CIS countries, Dubai, and the rest of the Middle East and largely to the African continent,” said Abeywickrama.

Flexiprint is the current market leader in Sri Lanka for its manufacture of packaging necessities for tea bags, mainly tea tags and tea envelopes. The company is well-established in the Sri Lankan tea market, having served 63% of tea manufacturers over the last decade and is also said to be the largest supplier to Dubai and parts of North Africa too. In recent years, the company successfully ventured into the self-adhesive label market, printing labels for the coconut, seafood, apparel, pharmaceutical, petroleum and other FMCG sectors as well. Print USA is leading in the manufacturing of packaging needs of Sri Lankan products mainly to the tea and rubber industries, the apparel industry and all other industries that do value addition to Sri Lankan products. Both companies supported their customers with non-stop production even during the pandemic through the dedication of a loyal and efficient workforce and boast of a steady growth rate of over 10% per annum despite the challenges posed by the global pandemic.

Speaking of how he achieved such remarkable longevity and success within the highly competitive and dynamically growing printing and packaging industry, Abeywickrama said, “Since my trainee days to the present, I have believed in and focused all my hard efforts on one area of specialisation which is printing. I never dreamt of becoming the largest printer but did everything possible to be one of the best value-addition providers in printing and packaging to the tea industry.”

Armed with that inspiring vision, Abeywickrama has guided Flexiprint and Print USA to achieve global excellence. The long-standing and continuously growing trust as printing and packaging service providers can be traced to his great dedication at the helm to provide only the best to his industry partners.

He adds, “As a policy, we don’t settle for the second best and assure unparalleled quality standards that both Print USA and Flexiprint have been known to deliver since their inception. With a green work ethic at heart which is embedded into the corporate culture, we consistently offer our valued clients a precise product that guarantees the best productivity. I am a firm believer that a sustainable business is a successful one and we intend to leave the smallest environmental footprint behind.”

Abeywickrama concludes, “I am proud to say that together with a highly dedicated team, I have claimed the position today as the best printing and packaging service provider to the tea industry and have established an undeniable mark even beyond. The recognition from my peers in the industry is a great honour. I always hope to maintain this position, continuously working up to the expectations of our customers in every possible way.”