Sri Lanka’s tasteful venture into global foods
Ingredients found in Sri Lanka have made taste buds from around the world wanting more of their favourite global brands in chocolates, spice mixes and bakery products.
Ferrero Rocher and Mars’ Bounty chocolates, Kellogg’s breakfast foods and Vita Coco, McCormick Spices, Mexican cinnamon breads and even Gourmet Spice and Jumbo Spices add spices like Cinnamon, pepper and nutmeg from Sri Lanka in addition to coconut.
Former Spice Council Chairman Nanda Kohonna told the Business Times that most pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg are sourced from Sri Lanka in the use of end food products.
He noted that even the instant noodles packs contain Sri Lankan spices in the small sachets that come along in the packing. In fact, Mr. Kohonna pointed out that it was Sri Lankan spices that were provided even in packets sold outside Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka has always been a spice hub to the world since the pre-colonial era and this tradition continues as the global brands continue to source their spices and coconuts from the island nation. McCormick is said to use a fair amount of Sri Lankan spices in them since the local produce particularly pepper and cinnamon have an intrinsic value with a high quality compared to those available from other markets, Mr. Kohonna said.
Past President of the Sri Lanka Food Processors Association Dhammika Gunasekara said that Sri Lanka is also central to providing coconut related products like desiccated coconuts and coconut oil to supermarkets like Walmart.
In fact, he pointed out that currently there is a trend for non-dairy vegetarian consumer items and, in this respect Sri Lanka caters to a market of 100 per cent vegans.
In addition, another trend observed is where people are now looking for proteins from non- animal products like improving on the coconut produce, he explained.
In fact, with most people conscious about not just animal welfare and damage to animal farming they are in search of meat alternatives with substitutes like tofu, it was noted.
Mr. Gunasekara explained that with most European Union (EU) countries unhappy about the genetically modified (GM) foods they are increasingly looking towards buying coconuts and using this in processing cheeses and butter.
Moreover, coconut milk finally ends up as a coconut beverage and now there are varieties like coconut ice creams and coconut yoghurt, he said in addition to being added to curries and soups.
Coconut oil also acts as a base for the skin care brands in the manufacture of cosmetics, he noted.
Sri Lanka in this respect is part of a number of other countries that are sought to source these ingredients by these global brands as most multinationals would have a number of markets to purchase these ingredients at any given time.