Maliban becomes only food company to seize World Class Award at APQO Conference 2016

Maliban General Manager RD & QA Varna Fernando handing over the Best in Class Trophy to Maliban Group Chairman R. Samaraweera. Also present from left are Director T. Samaraweera, Managing Director K. Fernando and Director S. Wickramapala

Maliban Biscuits, Sri Lanka’s most renowned and trusted biscuit manufacturer, has become the only food company in the world to be feted with the coveted World Class Award under the Large Manufacturing category at the Global Performance Excellence Award (GPEA) by the Asia Pacific Quality Organization (APQO) at the 22nd APQO International Conference on Quality held in Rotorua, New Zealand. 

The GPEA is a much sought-after award and has cemented Maliban’s place as an internationally acclaimed company with superior performance, surpassing many other multi-national corporations.

From over 40 countries, Maliban was the only food manufacturing organisation to receive a World Class Award under all categories, and also the only Sri Lankan food company to ever have received a World Class Award. Companies were awarded for performance excellence under the categories of Large Manufacturing, Large Service, and Education, Not for Profit, Small Manufacturing, Small Service, Education and Healthcare.

The Asia Pacific Quality Organization is an autonomous, non-political, non-profit, scientific and technical organisation aimed at working towards the goal of achieving continuous quality improvement of goods and services. The Global Performance Excellence Award is a prestigious award that brings together leading professional societies from the Asia-Pacific region, and is also the only form of formal international recognition of performance and business excellence. 

Participating companies must have been awarded the National Quality Award from a recognised local body and are assessed under several criteria including, leadership, strategic planning, customer focus, measurement analysis and knowledge, management, workforce focus, operation focus. Maliban Biscuit Manufactories Ltd. was awarded as one of thirty organisations with exemplary companies of world-class quality and performance.

Maliban Sri Lanka has always been a leader in excellence and providing their customers with biscuits of superior taste and quality. Since the company’s inception in 1954 as Sri Lanka’s pioneer biscuit manufacturing company, Maliban has been the gold standard, with their use of world-class ingredients and state-of-the-art manufacturing processes.

“We have always been committed to providing our consumers with biscuits of exceptional quality and taste at an affordable price,” said Maliban General Manager – Quality Assurance and Research Development Warna Fernando. “We have been awarded the National Quality Award thrice, which is a testament to our use of nothing but the best quality ingredients and advanced processes to ensure that our products are superior, while achieving sustainable development. At the time of inception, family members used to taste products to monitor quality and output. This is still practiced to this day.”

In the recent past, Maliban has received several prominent national and international awards from reputed awarding bodies for achieving business excellence. Maliban was the awarded the Sri Lanka National Quality Award (SLNQA) in 1996, 2010 and 2015. The Sri Lanka National Quality Award is an annual accolade, which recognises Sri Lankan organisations that excel in quality management and quality achievement. The National Quality Award programme is organised and implemented by the Marketing and Promotion division of Sri Lanka Standards Institution (SLSI). Applications are called annually and the applicant organisations are assessed against well-defined criteria.

Alongside receiving national recognition, Maliban was also the recipient of the Super Taste Award (Two Stars) for the Smart Cream Cracker, Gold Marie and Real Chocolate Cream Lemon Puff, from the International Taste & Quality Institute (iTQi) in 2016, held at the International Quality and Taste Institute in Brussels.

Maliban has also received other coveted accolades including the GPEA Best-in-class Award - 2011 - 2013, CNCI Crystal Award and Top 10 Award - 2015, and the GPEA World Class Award - 2016.