Hayleys Plantations wins 20 awards at Forbes and Walker Tea Awards 2016

Sri Lanka's leading tea producers from the Hayleys Group, Kelani Valley Plantations (KVPL) and Talawakelle Tea Estates PLC (TTEL), secured solid gains at the recently concluded Forbes and Walker Tea Awards 2016.

The two companies, which together comprise the plantation arm of the Hayleys Group, won a total of 20 awards in recognition of their outstanding achievements in securing productivity improvements and increases in sales volumes and prices across 2015 and 2016.

"The Hayleys Group through KVPL and TTEL has consistently worked to achieve performance excellence across all aspects of our tea business, and in that regard, we take great pride in the immense recognition that our companies received at the prestigious Forbes and Walker Tea Awards 2017. While the industry as a whole continues to face serious systemic challenges, both KVPL and TTEL have showed tremendous resilience and moving forward, we will continue to adapt our business models, augmenting them with international industry best practices to drive further improvements to the business while setting new benchmarks for the Sri Lankan tea industry," said KVPL and TTEL Managing Director, Roshan Rajadurai in a media release TTEL won tremendous recognition for its performances during the past two years being ranked as Best Performing RPC for the Highest GSA High Grown Category, Low Grown Category and Highest Overall GSA for both 2015 and 2016.

Meanwhile, the company's Great Western, Bearwell and Dessford Estates were all ranked among the Top 10 Marks in the Western High Grown Category in addition to winning the award for Most Number of Top Prices in the Western High Grown Category for both years, in addition to further awards for Highest Sales Average for Kiruwanaganga Estate in the RPC Low-Grown category and Deniyaya Estate recorded third Highest Sale Average in the RPC Low Grown Category.

Similarly, KVPL estates secured multiple awards for the Highest Agro- climatic Average for Black Tea in both 2015 and 2016, and was also ranked in the top 2 performers under the Best Performing Regional Plantation Companies (Sales Average) category for low grown in 2015 and high grown in 2016. Meanwhile, the company's Fordyce estate won recognition for the largest improvement in turnover by elevation while KVPL's Pedro Estate won the award for Highest Improvement in Sales Average for Black Tea.