Sathis Abeywickrama wins ‘Outstanding Entrepreneur’ award

Sathis Abeywickrama, Managing Director of premier tea bag and tea envelope manufacturing company Flexiprint Ltd., won the prestigious ‘Outstanding Entrepreneur’ award at the Asia Pacific Entrepreneur Awards held on 17 February at the Cinnamon Grand, Colombo.

“35 years of hard labour is what made me win this award,” said Abeywickrama, attributing his success to the hard work and positive approach to overcoming challenges over the many years he has been in business.

“Undoubtedly, I am thankful to the great trust the Sri Lankan and worldwide tea trade has had on me as a supplier of tea bag tags and envelopes and also of inner cartons to the tea trade,” continued Abeywickrama.

Reminiscing on his early days in the printing industry, Abeywickrama recalled the time he joined Aitken Spence in 1978 as a temporary supervisor while awaiting his advanced level examination results. Thereafter, he was promoted as a Management Trainee in Sales and Marketing at the Aitken Spence Printing Department. It was then that Abeywickrama started the no return voyage as a marketer of printed packaging for the value-added tea trade.

Today, Abeywickrama leads Flexiprint Ltd. and Print USA Ltd., which are the two major players in the value-added packaging supply field to the tea and rubber industry, cosmetics industry, and many other industries.

Abeywickrama stated that Flexiprint has become the single largest supplier of tea bag tags and envelopes and pyramid mesh to the Sri Lankan tea industry while also controlling major shares of the trade worldwide with Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Russia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Kenya, and India.

Abeywickrama’s ancestors hail from Gurubeula, Morawaka, in the Matara District and he is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Sumanadasa Abeywickrama of Morawaka. He is a true southerner with green fingers and is a believer of nature in its own glory and does not believe in disturbing it, while actively working on nature conservation.

Abeywickrama is grateful to his prestigious clientele in the tea trade from the biggest to the smallest and has a fantastic team that believes in giving the best service to all their customers; for supplying quality packaging to the value addition of Sri Lankan produce is a national course for the betterment of Mother Sri Lanka’s GDP.  Flexiprint has undoubtedly helped increase the flexibility in packaging needs of the tea trade in the Sri Lankan tea bag market.

Elaborating on this dream, Abeywickrama said it was to “make Sri Lanka the hub for tea bag tags and envelopes to the world and to see Sri Lanka being the biggest-value adding nation for the tea trade in the world.”