Sithara awarded with ‘Merit’ at National Quality Awards

Seated: Director Chayanka Wickremasinghe (left) and Chairman/Managing Director Channa Wickremasinghe. Standing (from left): Asst. Manager – Quality Assurance Gayantha Perera, Production Manager Mahesh Abeysinghe, General Manager H.B. Anandaratne, Chief Marketing and Technical Officer Malinda Tennakoon, and Factory Engineer Pubudu Madhushan 

Sithara Ltd., the pioneer printing ink manufacturing company in Sri Lanka, has been awarded with a ‘Merit’ at the recently concluded National Quality Awards (2022), conducted by the Sri Lanka Standards Institute. 

The National Quality Award is an annual award to recognise Sri Lankan companies that excel in Quality Management and Quality Achievement, which was conducted for the 27th consecutive year. This achievement is a result of company’s total commitment towards quality and consistency of its products and services offered to its clientele. Sithara Ltd. was founded in 1964 by visionary businessman and strategist C.E.L. Wickremesinghe to manufacture printing inks in Sri Lanka as a substitution to the imports that inundated into the country from European and Japanese counterparts. From the inception Sithara Ltd. diligently focused on research and development while consistently adapting and embracing newer technology.

Ever since the company has progressed into an industry leader with a comprehensive production range that has the widest collection of printing inks, developed and made in Sri Lanka, by surpassing all competitors. The quality has been the cornerstone of Sithara Ltd. with emphasis on cutting edge technology that has been used for testing machines employed in their laboratories. This dedication to implement latest technological methods evolved the company over the years, while formulating a winning strategy where the company has entered all spheres and quadrants of market place, notching several awards, accolades and accreditations such as ISO 9001 certification, a merit award at the CNCI Achiever Award for Industrial Excellence, ‘OK’ compost Home certification for compostable inks and a merit award of Sri Lanka National Quality Award (2022). 

The company has extended its product range covering the whole gamut inclusive of coatings which includes UV coatings, water based coatings, barrier coatings, biodegradable inks and UV Flexo inks and flexo, rotogravure and offset inks.

Lately the company has embarked on a net zero emission platform aligning with net zero emission targets stipulated by UNSDG by the year 2050, by completely converting into solar power mode to power the entire power requirement of the company. This is an ethical and genuine stance taken by the management in its pursuit to minimise fossil fuel usage. In its latest endeavours the organisation has embarked on a research and development effort to replace petroleum solvents with water. 

Furthermore the company has started research projects with many organisations to improve local value addition in the production by way of a backward integration to its supply chain network. All these fair and ethical practices with state of the art technology propelled the organisation to achieve its corporate Vision and Mission statements while being parallel or ahead of competition with a higher acceptance and credibility in the marketplace.