News - Finlays

Autumn/Winter ’06 

Volume 42/No.2 

Launching Our New Identity

Contents 

Articles 

View from the MD’s Desk 4 

Rupert Hogg charts a fundamental process of change within 

the Group’s structure and communications systems. 

Rethinking the Brand 6 

Creating a consistent look and feel for all our businesses. 

Project Lily 10 

Flowers go East. 

The Interaction Factor 11 

JF (Colombo) moves Human Resources up the agenda. 

Open Sesame! 12 

A dramatic new look for 186 Vauxhall Street, Colombo. 

Linking the Coffee Chain 14 

‘Our purpose is to serve our farmers’: a fresh view of 

the Colombian market. 

‘A Special Place in the Heart’ 16 

Revisiting the High Range, ‘a jewel in the former Finlay crown’. 

Pensioners’ Reunion 18 

Friends and former colleagues catch up. 

News 

Head Office 19 

Tea Estates 19 

Tea Trading 22 

Tea Extracts 23 

Beverages 23 

Flowers 26 

Sri Lanka 27 

US 28 

Pakistan 29 

Announcements 

Births & Marriages 30 

Deaths inside back cover 

Front Cover A fresh new look for Finlays, but tea remains a constant. 

Inside Front Cover Roses, Flowers' primary crop, sleeved and ready for shipment. 

Back Cover Instant identification, from London to Nanjing: a soluble tea product sports 

our new logo. 

3

4 

View from the MD’s Desk Rupert Hogg 

The decision to make this move has not 

been taken lightly. Finlays is an old and 

venerable Scottish company, established 

as long ago as 1750, only five years after 

the battle of Culloden. During much of 

the ensuing 250 years the company 

has played a prominent role in the civic 

and commercial affairs of the city of 

Glasgow as well in the communities of 

Catrine and Deanston. 

However, we have not had a Scottish-based 

operational business for a decade and the 

larger of those former businesses were 

closed or sold in the decades prior 

to that. It is also the case that many of 

the smaller businesses that were started 

during the same period, such as Flowers, 

Tea Trading and Tea Extracts, have grown or 

evolved considerably to become significant 

businesses in their own right and have real 

prospects for rapid growth. 

First steps into China: the new joint venture tea extracts 

plant at Nanjing takes shape. Tony Barcroft (r) is seen here 

with George Chan (l), Director Finlays Hong Kong and 

David Jiang, Chairman of the Damin International Group. 

There is much going on at present, both within James Finlay 

and the broader markets in which we operate; I will make 

mention of some of these trends later in this article. However, 

without question, the most important piece of news that I have 

to report is tinged with sadness: that is the fact that the Head 

Office and Glasgow operations of James Finlay Limited are to 

move to London as of the middle of next year. 

These businesses are now led and managed 

from London. In addition, as some of the 

articles in this edition may illustrate, many 

of the competitive and consumer trends to 

which the individual group companies 

identify and respond now require a far 

greater degree of coordination across the 

Group than has been the case in the past. 

Thus, the driving thrust behind the decision 

to move the head office closer to some of 

our subsidiaries is underpinned by the 

desire to improve our ability to coordinate 

and communicate internally and therefore 

to improve the products and services that 

we offer our customers externally. 

That is the rationale behind the decision to 

move the head office to London and that is 

what we intend to achieve by so doing. 

However, none of this diminishes the fact 

that the move represents the end of an era 

and that, more importantly, it is likely to 

mean redundancies for the great majority of 

the current team that have worked in the 

Glasgow office and contributed so much to 

Finlays. I can only state that the Directors 

and Shareholders appreciate this and that 

the writing of this article offers me the 

opportunity to publicly thank those 

concerned for that contribution and for 

their continued support until the transition 

is complete. 

I hope that the reader will notice that this 

edition of Finlays Magazine has a new look 

and that the traditional tea leaf motif has 

evolved too. These changes result from a 

re-branding exercise that is described 

elsewhere in this edition (page 6). 

While the outcome may be visually striking, 

the exercise itself is but a logical step in a 

more fundamental process of change 

within Finlays. 

The first objective has been to move 

towards a functional and divisional 

structure and away from the Group’s 

traditional geographic basis. This process is 

incomplete as yet but, as an indication, 

several of the subsidiary businesses now 

have Managing Directors who are 

responsible for all of the activities of their 

division on a global basis, a much simpler 

and more customer-focused proposition. 

The second objective, to which I have 

already referred, comes from within the 

Group itself: the need for the Group to be 

more cohesive and coordinated in its 

approach to the market and to our major 

customers on issues that impact us all and 

which are important to that wider customer 

base. From a communications perspective, 

the inference of such trends is obvious; we 

need a common look and feel across the 

Group and we need to become more 

uniform and consistent in the way in which 

we present ourselves. I believe that this 

exercise has managed that evolution well 

and injected a desirable dose of freshness 

and modernity to our ‘look’ in the process. 

Finlays has a fine record for social and 

environmental responsibility; I hope that 

what we do on the ground demonstrates 

that there is real substance behind such a 

claim. To a great degree, the Fairtrade 

accreditation scheme, of which many 

consumers are aware, acknowledges these 

credentials. All of our flower farms and 

some of our tea estates have either obtained 

or are in the final stages of obtaining

Tea Estates Tea Trading Tea Extracts Beverages Flowers Logistics Services 

Kenya UK 

Tea 

Decaffeination 

UK 

UK UK 

Uganda 

Kenya 

China 

Sri Lanka Kenya 

Sri Lanka 

Malawi 

USA 

China 

USA 

Gulf 

Vietnam 

Kenya 

Fairtrade accreditation and they also 

comply with a series of other bodies that 

audit against material evidence of social 

and environmental standards. 

This is important for Finlays, not least 

because it resonates with our values and 

beliefs, but also because it is important to 

our customers; they take their 

responsibilities seriously in this regard. It is 

quite clear that they wish to source 

products from suppliers who can 

demonstrate a proven track record and who 

are genuinely interested in improving 

further in these areas; we are placing 

additional resources and a high priority on 

our Corporate Social Responsibility 

programme as a result. 

The current debate on climate change adds 

further impetus in this regard. There is 

broad consensus within Finlays that man’s 

activities have influenced and continue to 

influence the world’s climate and there is a 

strong desire to ensure that we do our bit 

to minimise our own impact. It is equally 

important that any plans that we develop 

are informed by fact and we have 

commissioned a Group-wide study to 

determine Finlays ‘carbon footprint’: what 

we emit but also what we might absorb, and 

to give us a quantifiable baseline from 

which to improve. I am confident we can 

make real progress here too; opportunites 

in the area of clean energy provision is one 

example of where work is already at a 

relatively advanced stage. 

From an operational and business 

development perspective there is activity 

aplenty too. The year 2007 will mark the 

Omniflora 

Germany 

USA 

Jetflowers 

Kenya 

Sri Lanka 

Temperature 

Controlled 

Logistics 

USA 

Inventory 

Management 

first stage of the Group’s expansion into 

China. There are two projects of note: the 

first, the establishment of a flower farm in 

Kunming is reported on (page 10). 

Sri Lanka 

Agencies 

Environmental 

Services 

Insurance 

Pakistan 

The second initiative is the establishment of 

a joint venture with the Damin Group to 

build and operate a tea extracts plant in 

Nanjing. The Tea Extracts division has 

worked closely and productively with 

Damin over the last two years. In addition 

to other businesses, Damin International, a 

Xiamen-based company, is the largest 

producer of tea extracts in China and has 

expanded rapidly and successfully in the 

domestic PRC market. Finlays and Damin 

have had a joint sales agreement to 

promote and sell each other’s products in 

their respective markets for some time. The 

new plant in Nanjing will allow both parties 

to strengthen their ties and to offer a 

broader product range to their mutual 

customers. The plant is due to be 

commissioned in 2007. 

2006 has been a satisfactory year for 

Finlays: the results reflect a mix of fortunes 

across the various companies but, overall, 

the highs outweigh the lows and we have 

made real progress against our business 

plans in all of the subsidiaries. 

It only remains for me to acknowledge that 

Pat Lockett, who has held the position of 

Group Finance Director for the last 11 years, 

has decided that he would prefer not to 

make the move to London and has instead 

opted to leave Finlays at the end of this 

year. This, I hope and suspect, does not 

mean that his active life in Scottish business 

circles will not continue. Pat has held an 

instrumental position over a period of 

Finlays' move away from its traditional 

geographic basis towards a functional and 

divisional structure is reflected by its new and 

consistent brand image. 

great change, 

encompassing the 

change of 

ownership and the 

transition from 

being a public to a 

private company; 

also the rapid 

development of 

many of the 

Pat Lockett 

subsidiary 

businesses. 

The Group has benefited from his presence 

and I know that he will be missed on a 

personal basis by many employees, past 

and present. Pat has promised to write an 

article for the next edition, reflecting on 

his time with the company; in the meantime 

we send him and Erica our best wishes for 

the future. 

5

6 

Rethinking the Brand Simon Large 

At the beginning of 2006 we decided to conduct 

a review of our brand. That is, we wanted to take 

a long hard look at how and what we communicate 

to our employees, customers and stakeholders, 

in order to understand how we are perceived 

and what we stand for. 

Having called upon the services of 

a London-based brand consultancy – 

FutureBrand – and many people 

across different parts of the business, 

it became immediately apparent 

that our current visual identity was 

inconsistently applied. Across the 

globe we have different company 

names, logos, websites, typefaces, 

taglines and signage (see above). 

This was delivering an inconsistent 

message and tone of voice. 

One of the main reasons for the 

lack of consistency was the limited 

guidelines and advice previously 

provided to the Group on the 

application and delivery of a clear, 

single, visual message. With the 

growth, expansion and increasing 

competition that we are experiencing, 

it was imperative to re-establish our 

brand’s personality, institute a 

clearer set of values and develop 

a new and unified visual brand identity. 

To start with, a detailed questionnaire 

was circulated to different people 

across the group, and supported 

with creative workshops. This work 

not only helped to evaluate us against 

our competition and establish what 

makes us unique, it enabled us to 

agree what we should stand for, 

going forward. 

Three main themes arose from 

this exploratory phase. First, we 

established that our rich heritage 

and tradition is fundamental to 

what we are today, and we are 

unanimously proud of it. 

Secondly, our knowledge and our 

passion for our products are equally 

prevalent. Thirdly, the care we 

have for the environment, our 

people and our communities is 

integral to our organisation and 

the way we behave. These values 

were considered along with our 

natural, contemporary and 

multicultural personality to inform 

and shape our new visual brand 

identity and the way we will 

communicate in the future.

Going forward, we will be identified 

as a single brand, with a single name – 

Finlays – which will be applied right 

across the Group. This conveys a 

strong, simple and consistent branded 

message to all stakeholders: that we 

are proud of the Finlays name and all 

that it has come to stand for. Therefore, 

all functions within the business, from 

Tea Extracts, to Flowers to Logistics, 

will adopt the ‘Finlays’ brand. 

We have created a new visual identity 

that’s fresh and contemporary, that will 

be consistently applied across all 

touchpoints, and supported with a 

set of clear and comprehensive 

guidelines. The visual identity still 

retains strong links with our heritage 

and exudes naturalness through a 

core green colour palette. 

One of the main drivers for refreshing 

our visual identity was our current 

corporate logo. Despite the fact that 

the tea leaf icon is representative 

of our heritage and experience in 

cultivating, distributing and packaging 

tea, it is not distinctive (many companies 

now have tea leaf logos), and no 

longer accurately reflects our diverse 

business functions. Our new logo is 

unique, contemporary and impactful, 

and more aligned with all our 

business divisions. 

Continued overleaf... 

7

8 

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To enable our offices and employees 

to create and develop platforms 

and materials for communications, 

we have created a range of applications 

along with our new brand guidelines. 

This includes new corporate 

stationery, printed literature, 

signage, vehicle livery and 

photography (which will be 

expanded in the future), all of 

which have the consistency that 

was previously lacking. We have 

also established clear standards 

for the application of the Swire 

brand to endorse the Finlays 

brand. Again this was an area 

which had previously been very 

erratic due to the lack of guidelines.

We have created a distinctive 

visual identity for our Flowers, 

Services and Logistics businesses, 

in order to differentiate them 

from the tea and beverages 

businesses within the Group and 

provide them with a stronger 

presence within their markets. 

They retain the Group brand 

identity, but feature colour 

palettes that are inspired by their 

products, services and 

environments. The Flowers visual 

identity – comprising warm tones 

– is inspired by the flowers we 

grow and nurture on our estates 

in Kenya, whilst the colour palette 

for our Services and Logistics 

businesses – comprising cool tones – 

has been inspired by the 

functions of the cold storage and 

logistics business. 

Developing our new visual identity 

and creating the guidelines was 

the first necessary stage in 

re-launching the brand. The next 

crucial steps will be its consistent 

implementation across the Group, 

as well as our future adherence to 

these new standards. 

Simon Large 

Commercial Director 

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9

10 

Project Lily Nev Harries 

In 1996 Finlay Flowers established a joint 

venture with Hilverda Plant Technology, a 

well known and respected Dutch company 

specialising in the breeding and 

propagation of carnation, alstroemeria and 

limonium plants. The joint venture is 

involved in the production of standard 

and spray carnation cuttings here on our 

tea estates in Kericho. From a production 

area of 3 Ha, over 20 million cuttings are 

produced annually, of which a substantial 

proportion are exported to international 

markets including Japan. 

In an increasingly competitive market, 

rising airfreight rates represent a major 

cost. As a result, Hilverda are considering 

setting up satellite production facilities 

closer to key markets and have been 

exploring the potential of establishing a 

production facility in China. Since the start 

of our joint venture the relationship 

between our two companies has grown from 

strength to strength; Hilverda approached 

Finlays last year with a proposal to develop 

a project together in China where the 

former would operate a cuttings production 

facility in partnership with a Finlays cut 

flower project. A visit to Kunming was 

arranged in April this year when Tim 

Blackburn and I accompanied Hilverda 

Directors Jan Hilverda and Marius Tas and 

their China Representative Pieter Strooper. 

Kunming is the capital of Yunnan province, 

located in the south west of China. The 

Province has been at the forefront of cut 

flower development in China. Due to a 

unique combination of climate, topography 

and altitude, which enable a wide variety of 

flowers to be grown year round, the area 

surrounding Kunming and nearby Yuxi 

cities is ideally suited for cut flower 

production. The growth in this sector has 

been very rapid in Yunnan. Amazingly, the 

first farms were started as recently as the 

late ’eighties; yet, today, there are over 

4,000 Ha of flowers cultivated in this 

region, accounting for over 50% of China’s 

total cut flower production. In 2002 alone 

over 2 billion flowers were produced. 

The ten-year old joint 

venture between 

Finlay Flowers and 

Hilverda Plant 

Technology has put 

out a promising new 

shoot. Nev Harries, 

Assistant Executive 

Finlay Flowers, 

goes East. 

Yoshikazu Suzuki (Fuji-Plants), Yuuki Ban (Florist), Jan 

Hilverda, Pieter Strooper (Hilverda B.V.), Yoshihiro Sugai 

(Nissho Iwai), Marius Tas (Hilverda B.V.), Tim Blackburn, 

Nev Harries (Finlays) and representatives of Yingmao. 

The rapid development of the domestic 

market and proximity to regional markets, 

Japan in particular, are key factors in the 

success of the proposed venture, where 

Finlays would be looking to produce 

certified, premium quality cut flowers for 

niche markets. With this in mind we visited 

several farms to review operations. Whilst in 

Kenya it is not uncommon for flower farms 

to be in excess of 50 hectares, the majority 

of farms in Yunnan are family-run 

smallholdings, varying in size from a few 

hundred square metres up to half a hectare 

with very few projects over ten hectares. 

The visit highlighted the potential of this 

venture and the significant advantages 

which our Kenyan experience could afford. 

Since this initial visit we have been working 

closely with our Swire colleagues in Beijing 

and Hong Kong and with representatives of 

the Yunnan Flower Association to identify 

potential locations for the development of a 

commercial project. At this stage two 

potential sites have been identified with the 

preferred candidate situated approximately 

one hour’s drive northwest of Kunming in 

the Songming area. In addition to excellent 

road and utilities infrastructure, an 

additional advantage of this potential site is 

that the new Kunming Airport, due to be 

completed in 2009, is located on the 

Songming side of the city, presenting rapid 

and convenient access to market. At the 

time of writing, a further visit to Kunming 

was planned for November.

The Interaction Factor Mithraka Fernando 

A conscious effort has been made to foster 

open, two-way communication through a 

number of initiatives. For the past 15 

months, a monthly Core Team Brief by the 

Chairman has successfully disseminated 

important news and information to the 

Executive Committee. Thereafter, each 

divisional head adds a local brief and 

communicates the findings to all staff. 

Recently this process was extended to 

cover all manual workers as well. At the 

local brief, employees are encouraged to 

ask questions. Those that divisional heads 

are unable to answer are referred to the 

directors for answers. 

The new Chairman Kumar Jayasuriya, who 

assumed office in April this year, has 

initiated discussions with staff officers, 

sharing his vision for the Company and also 

listening to their ideas and answering 

questions. It is hoped to maintain this new 

line of open communication by repeating 

the exercise twice a year. 

A suggestion scheme, branded 

“Brainwaves”, was launched in May, with an 

encouraging 118 suggestions being received. 

Cash prizes were awarded to those who 

made the eight best suggestions which the 

Company felt able to implement. 

Special Brainwaves boxes have been 

installed prominently in every location 

to make the submission process simple. 

The competition will be held twice a year 

in future, with the winners being 

rewarded, recognized and featured in 

the Company Newsletter. 

A formal grievance-handling process is in 

the development stage; this, it is hoped, will 

provide employees with a channel through 

which complaints can be addressed and 

minor issues prevented from escalating into 

bigger problems. In the interim, anyone with 

a grievance has been requested to write to 

the HR division; he or she has the promise 

of a written response after consultations 

with the necessary personnel. 

Beginning with the October 2006 issue, the 

company newsletter Finlays News aims to 

reach out to the bulk of the workforce by 

publishing two pages in Sinhala. The 

circulation of the newsletter was also 

increased with every single employee 

receiving an individual copy. Depending on 

feedback, the next step is likely to be the 

launch of a separate, Sinhala language 

publication, tailor-made for its readership. 

The newsletter, in addition to disseminating 

information, also acts as a forum where 

employees are able to express their views 

and exercise their creative talents. Typically, 

employees would take the newsletter home, 

offering management a means by which to 

communicate with the former’s family 

members as well. 

The resounding success of the inaugural 

Finlays Kiddies’ Art Competition in 2005 

has made the event an annual feature, 

providing an opportunity for children of 

all employees, whether director or worker, 

to sit together and take part in the fun as 

members of a single family. The featuring 

of winning entries as Christmas cards acts 

as an added incentive for employees to 

enter their children for the competition. 

The traditional year-end party, hitherto 

confined to higher-ranking staff, will be 

thrown open, from this year onwards, to 

cover every single employee of the Group. 

The Company hired an entertainment 

park in Colombo for this year’s event at 

which around 1500 Finlays employees and 

their family members converged (see page 

27). Other Group-wide sports and 

recreational activities have included a 

six-a-side cricket tournament in July and a 

Sports Carnival in September where 

For over a century James Finlay 

& Co. (Colombo) has focused on 

steady growth. Today, says Mithraka 

Fernando, Head of Human Resources 

Development, ambitious new targets 

and objectives centre on the 

workforce, currently identified as 

the key element in transforming 

the Company’s future. 

The Childrens’ Art Competition: fun for one big family. 

employees were given the opportunity to 

display their sporting prowess. 

The refurbishment of the Colombo office 

(see page 12) has been carried out in line 

with the open office concept - breaking 

down physical barriers and providing an 

environment which enables people to 

interact and work across divisions. The 

concept initially resulted in culture shock; 

most employees were used to working in 

office environments with rooms and 

cubicles! However, it is hoped that the 

obvious advantages of the open office 

system will, in the long term, foster 

increased integration and interaction. 

The training and development activities of 

the Company have been accelerated, the 

emphasis being on creating a ‘learning’ 

organization. Two noteworthy initiatives in 

this regard were the JF Management 

Proficiency Program and the JF Certificate in 

Basic Management which saw around 50 

managers and executives taken through an 

eight-session, management development 

program. Group assignments were set, with 

each group having to write a report on 

Finlays-specific topics and to make a 

presentation to the Executive Committee. 

Ongoing training initiatives for all 

categories include productivity based 

training, safety and health, and a Groupwide 

awareness program on HIV/AIDS. A 

guest lecture series was also inaugurated so 

that employees in the executive grade could 

learn from the success stories of those in 

business as well as other areas. 

In keeping with the Company’s tag line: 

“Enriched by the past, transforming the 

future”, the HR initiatives described above 

will, it is hoped, transform working life for 

the people in whose hands lies Finlays’ 

exciting future. 

11

12 

Designing an open plan office to promote greater 

interaction between Finlays Colombo staff was the 

challenge recently undertaken by Srinath Jayasuriya, 

Manager Buildings Division. He and his team had 

previously done re-modeling jobs on minor sections 

of the premises, but here was something far more 

exciting. The results, says Srinath, were to prove 

well beyond expectations.

Open Sesame! Srinath Jayasuriya 

I count myself fortunate in having been 

chosen to coordinate almost all of such 

transformations at 186 Vauxhall Street, 

between my stints at the Tea Warehouse 

and stage one of the Cold Storage, located 

in Welisara. Looking back: in 2002, what 

had been the tea blending floor for many 

years underwent a dramatic change in 

becoming the present office of Cathay 

Pacific, our Airline Division. Two years 

later the upper floor of the same building, 

having languished as storage space for the 

paper sacks which replaced the traditional 

tea chests, was transformed for renting as 

top-of-the-range office space. 

So, in April this year, I and the handful 

of colleagues who formed the Buildings 

Department, took it upon ourselves to 

re-seat virtually all of the divisions in 

Colombo on two floors of the same 

main office building. 

Our new chairman, Kumar Jayasuriya, 

required a model, open-plan office, to 

promote staff interaction and 

communication, a concept that had 

already shaped many of the business 

houses in Colombo. 

Contracting out the various tasks was 

quickly done but it took weeks to work out 

when the last person would take his seat. 

The logistics were very demanding; given 

the fact that some people already 

working on the ground floor were 

awaiting relocation to the floor above, 

the refurbishment had to be tackled in 

two stages. 

Noise, dust and the lack of air conditioning 

were potential irritants but our colleagues 

deserve high praise for the great degree of 

tolerance they displayed towards me and 

my support staff. 

The supplier of furniture to Finlays for 

many years produced drawing after 

drawing, determined, with every change, to 

achieve an ideal outcome. The final tally, for 

both floors, was a mind-blowing 30 

drawings. I even had a temporary desk at 

the supplier’s office at which I spent a good 

part of the first few days of the project. 

We now accommodate six different divisions 

of the Company on the ground floor and 

seven on the upper floor, each with varying 

head counts. Both floors have meeting 

rooms in keeping with their particular 

requirements, also separate document 

storage areas; these latter will subsequently 

be racked as their contents grow. 

Although the office looks compact with 

regard to the positioning of staff, there is 

provision for reasonable expansion within 

each division The bright, white walls will 

soon be hung with prints of the now 

diversified Finlay operations. In years gone 

by these same walls lent their ears to the 

sounds of grading, tasting and sampling, 

the main operation here before the Tea 

Division re-located to Welisara. 

Window blinds are of pinhead perforation 

which permits ample daylight and provides 

a welcome view of the well laid out garden, 

cherished and admired by generations of 

Finlay employees. Energy saving fixtures 

control the electricity, cutting out the use of 

unnecessary artificial lighting. 

We did not forget the washrooms which 

have been re-modeled to the highest 

standards, with the latest in modern 

washroom hygiene gadgetry chosen by 

Thushara Agus who heads the Healthcare 

division. Taking the initiative here, 

Thushara led an almost all-ladies team, 

which moved into occupation during the 

stages of work-in-progress. They even went 

to the extent of celebrating the occasion by 

organizing a traditional breakfast of milk 

rice and sweetmeats for all ‘colleagues to 

be’ in this shared working environment. 

Among the many other stalwarts who put 

their shoulders to the wheel, appreciation is 

due to Mithraka Fernando, the Head of HR, 

who perfectly timed two workshops on the 

‘5S’ method of office procedure for every 

one of us. I should also mention the 

commitment of the young IT team lead by 

Vamadevan Parthiban. During times of night 

work, we relied on such knowledgeable 

gentlemen as Sudesh Wijethilaka and the 

new recruit Nimantha Arambegedera, who 

coordinated the cabling works for power, 

telephones and computers. 

We now run a system of access control 

for the office by means of redesigned 

Company ID cards which operate on 

proximity readers. 

With interaction the name of the game, the 

tea breaks provide all of us with an 

opportunity to meet on the top floor while 

preparing our own cups of tea. It’s farewell 

to memories of a khaki-clad tea boy pouring 

from a kettle! Remarkably, this new form of 

tea service has turned out to be popular 

with all levels of staff. Another popular 

innovation has been the creation of an 

office pastry shop in an area with main 

road frontage; we now have a place to pick a 

lunch or order a birthday cake on behalf of 

a colleague. 

With the refurbished office up and running 

and given plenty of enthusiasm for change, 

we are all working in the utmost harmony! 

13

Clockwise: 

Colombian farmer, Orlando, examining his coffee crop. 

Alan Davies (r) gets to work with Expocafe’s chief 

taster, Steven Diaz. 

Orlando shows the visitors his coffee pulping machine. 

Alan with Expocafe’s Trading and Operations Chief, 

Alvaro Ramirez.

Linking the Coffee Chain Alan Davies and Michael Pennant-Jones 

Finlay Beverages is the largest private label roast and ground coffee packer in 

the UK supplying private label coffee to major retailers. Colombia is important 

to us, as the single largest origin for our business and a crucial component of 

many of our blends. Finlay Beverages purchase over 700mt of Colombian coffee 

per annum, and yet staff had little first-hand experience of how the coffee was 

processed, sourced and marketed. Coffee Buyer and Blender Alan Davies and 

CSR Manager Michael Pennant-Jones set off to explore the coffee chain. 

The high Andean mountains stretch from 

the borders of Ecuador and Peru in the 

South to the Caribbean Sea in the North, 

abutting the Pacific Ocean in the West and 

the rainforests of the Amazon Basin in the 

East. This vast area accommodates a host 

of micro climates and soil types which 

facilitate the production of a rich and 

diverse variety of an important crop for 

Finlays, coffee. 

Colombia is the largest producer of fully 

washed arabica coffee in the world, with 

an average crop of over 11 million bags 

(660,000 mt). The majority of the coffee 

that we purchase comes from the Central 

Andean growing areas, forming a triangle 

cornered by Bogota, Periera and Medellin, 

and marketed under the generic name of 

“Medellin Excelso”. These plantations are 

amongst the oldest in Colombia, being 

established in the 19th century; they 

produce a full bodied coffee with a nutty 

flavour and light acidity. 

Our visit took in meetings with the 

marketing bodies, the Federation of 

National Coffee Growers (FNC) and 

Expocafe; the farmers’ representatives from 

whom we buy our coffee directly; farmers in 

both the Periera and Bogota areas; and the 

mills where the coffee is sorted and bagged. 

‘Our purpose is to serve our farmers’, 

remarked an employee of the FNC during a 

presentation at the Federation’s offices. 

Typical marketing speak, some might say; 

however, after a few days in Colombia we 

realised that this philosophy genuinely 

underpins the country’s coffee industry. It 

explains why Colombia has one of the most 

sophisticated and successful smallholder 

systems in the world, renowned for its 

consistent high quality of coffee. 

Founded over 80 years ago, the FNC was set 

up to organise small farmers in the coffee 

industry. Its ownership is a complex web, 

stretching between the farmers, their cooperatives 

and mills to ensure that there 

are checks and balances at all levels. 

This cross-ownership gives a stable 

platform but also allows freedom for the 

farmer to sell coffee to anyone, and to do 

what is best for him. Intense market 

competition within a heavily organised 

sector, focused at all levels on serving the 

farmers, has resulted in growth and huge 

benefits for the latter and for the country. 

The FNC guarantees not only a minimum 

price for Colombian coffee, based on 

international markets, but also guarantees 

to purchase that coffee at the minimum 

price; this ensures that all competitors have 

to buy above it. Guaranteeing a minimum 

price is not enough to ensure that this 

system works; thus, only high quality 

coffees can be exported from Colombia, 

after first being checked by the FNC. 

An amazingly multi-functional organisation, 

the FNC not only works as a support and 

trading house for coffee, but also 

undertakes shipment checks on all coffee 

exported, to ensure that nothing of substandard 

quality leaves the country. 

Additionally, it also works on agricultural 

extension, infrastructure projects, 

purchasing coffee, trading and shipping 

coffee around the world and has 

shareholdings in all member co-operatives. 

Interestingly, at the time when FNC 

purchased 80% of Colombian coffee there 

was a realisation that this was not good for 

the farmer as there was little competition. 

The solution was to set-up another 

company, Expocafe, to compete with them 

in buying coffee from smallholders. Today 

Finlay Beverages source directly from both 

these companies. 

Overall, we were deeply impressed with the 

professionalism and organisation of the 

farmers who are truly passionate about 

their coffee; also with the excellent levels of 

quality control and, at the end of the day, 

with a superb range of coffees. It has to be 

said Colombian coffee will never taste the 

same again. 

Orlando, owner of a coffee smallholding on 

a mountainside in the Risaralda, took us on 

a tour of his property. The coffee grows on 

steep slopes, with riparian strips by a 

stream; bamboo is planted to absorb the 

water and provide building material; there 

are a couple of hectares of coffee and 

washing and drying areas for the crop, all 

laid out with good practices in mind. 

On the plateau below, large areas of 

grassland now under cattle were, until a few 

years ago, largely coffee farms. These are 

disappearing not only because the lower 

quality of coffee they produce is prone to 

disease, but also due to a growing economy 

where labour costs have risen substantially. 

On Orlando’s farm the extended family is 

used to assist at cropping times; and the 

personal attention he can give to the bushes 

helps keep disease to a minimum and 

farming sustainable. 

In common with many smallholders, 

Orlando is continually investing in his farm; 

the standards he maintains compare 

favourably with some of the larger farms. 

Sustainable practices are well evident, with 

minimal use of chemicals through increased 

inspection and management of the bushes. 

The FNC provides technical support even to 

the level of developing mycorrhizas to 

replace fertiliser. To support smallholders 

like Orlando the FNC have been exploring 

product diversification programmes 

including the growing of fruit trees, 

macadamia nuts, and bamboo for building; 

also partnerships with large companies 

such as Dole of the USA on plantain. 

All this ongoing work and constant 

improvement will, hopefully, assist farmers 

like Orlando to continue to meet the 

expectations of the market, yet allow him to 

profit from his investment in and his 

attention to a high quality product that is 

the mainstay of Finlays coffees. 

15

16 

‘A Special Place in the Heart’ William Henderson 

The historic landscape of tea in the Indian 

Subcontinent has recently undergone 

seismic change. After more than 120 

years, Finlays called a halt to its 

operations in Bangladesh (see our last 

edition). Meanwhile, an employee buy-out 

by the 12000-strong work force in 2005 

once again changed the fortunes of Tata 

Tea Limited’s South India Plantation 

Division, founded in 1878 by James Finlay 

& Co. Ltd., and run by the company until 

its Indian estates were finally sold to Tata 

in 1982. We asked Bill Henderson, a 

former High Range General Manager and 

co-author of ‘Facets of a Hundred Years 

Planting’, to take a nostalgic look back at 

early days in South India’s incomparably 

beautiful Kanan Devan Hills, a place 

regarded by an earlier generation as the 

jewel in the company’s crown. 

The original company was formed in 1895 

within the area of the Kanan Devan 

Concession - some 230 square miles, first 

granted in 1877 to one John Daniel Munro. 

The area, known as the High Ranges, by 

virtue of their wild and rugged nature, 

includes Aneimudi, the highest mountain in 

India south of the Himalayas. All this was to 

be transformed, by generations of 

venturesome planters into a veritable 

Shangri-la. 

Under the Finlay umbrella, former 

proprietary plantations were developed and 

new extensions opened, initially in rubber, 

chinchona and coffee. Life in those times for 

both planter and labourer was no sinecure: 

travel in and out of the hills was by bullockcart, 

horse-back, 'dooly' (litter) or, in 

extremis, 'shanks pony'. 

Torrential monsoon rains often washed out 

bridges and roads. The year 1924 saw a 

particularly savage monsoon devastate great 

swathes of the district, take many lives and 

go down in High Range history as a date 

never to be forgotten. The Light Railway had 

to be discontinued after extensive damage, 

factories were destroyed along with labour 

lines, bridges, buildings and people. 

The flood nevertheless resulted in the 

development of district-wide roads and, 

later, an aerial ropeway. These greatly aided 

the Munnar township's ability to provide 

basic necessities to management, staff and 

labour, previously frequently bereft of 

supplies for weeks on end. 

It also focused attention on the urgent 

necessity of improving health measures in 

the face of plague and cholera, both 

prevalent in the low-country and brought in 

by recruited labour, despite the installation 

of plague check-posts. The General Hospital, 

established in the early days just outside the 

town, was completely renovated and moved 

into the town centre, while medical facilities 

were extended to each plantation. As selfsufficiency 

became vital, plans were laid for 

the establishment of a farm in the Kundaly 

Valley and for a store at Munnar. Thus, the 

MSA or Munnar Supply Association came 

into being and remains so today. 

Finlay's forged ahead with a programme of 

improvement; by 1915 there were 16 

modernised tea factories, some hydro 

driven, others by electricity supplied by two 

power houses built in 1900 and 1910 at 

Pullivassal and Periakanal; other motive 

power derived from turbines and waterdriven 

Pelton wheels. Side by side with these

improvements, transportation for the 

movement of leaf, teas and machinery 

evolved slowly, until the arrival of the 

tractor transformed plucking and 

processing standards. 

The horse, however, was the planter's 

mainstay for decades, until motorcycles 

became generally available. In 1904, a 

Mounted Infantry Company known as The 

Southern Provinces Mounted Rifles(SPMR) 

was formed; this led to the introduction of 

horses to the High Range where they 

rapidly became integral not only to 

plantation supervision, but to the planters’ 

social life, facilitating visits to neighbours 

and to the Club. 

Stories of such visits, some perhaps 

apocryphal, abound. One evening, after 

much conviviality, two senior planters exited 

the Club, mounted up, bade each other 

goodnight and rode off - each to wake up 

the following morning in the other's 

bungalow! From the Club, a path meanders 

up through the tea to a junction of several 

other routes where it was customary for a 

group to pause for a last smoke before 

heading back to their respective estates, 

their path lit only by the glow of a stirruplantern. 

This was, and to this day still is, 

called Cigarette Point. 

In 1910, an allowance of Rupees 30 was paid 

to maintain a horse, but inflationary spirals 

took their toll as always and, in 1971, the 

last allowance paid was Rupees 300. It is 

interesting to note that in the same year, 

an Assistant Manager received, on marrying, 

only an additional Rupees 125 on his 

Dearness Allowance - but then horses 

do eat more! 

Travel times, of course, decreased with the 

introduction of the motorcycle, car, lorry 

and tractor. In the 1920s, planters going 

from Munnar to play rugby in the Nilgiri 

Hills, required to take a week's leave as the 

150 mile journey alone took three to four 

days. The same journey, by car today is 

achieved in about four to five hours. 

The early planters may have worked and 

played hard but did not neglect the 

spiritual. The absence of a church resulted 

in one committee minute recording: "One 

gentleman remarked that he had heard 

discontent voiced at the Club library being 

made use of for church services, thus 

preventing members from making use of 

the billiard room". 

A pretty little church was duly built and 

consecrated in 1911. Despite inconsistencies 

of religious enthusiasm over the years, 

Christ Church continues to be used by all 

Protestant denominations, including the 

local Tamil and Malayali congregations. 

New Assistants had always been required to 

learn the Tamil language; in the 1950s, the 

reward was either Rupees 1000 - or a re-sit; 

failure earned a passage home! One such 

new entrant, a decade earlier, was advised 

by the then General Manager of this 

requirement. His manager helpfully chimed 

in, "Yes sir, of course. I actually learnt my 

Tamil from 'Inge Va' (a local textbook whose 

title translates as 'Come Here'). In answer 

the GM roared: "I don't care what her name 

was. This boy must learn the vernacular!" 

The High Range has always held a special 

place in the hearts of its planters and was 

the envy of many other districts: primarily 

for the sheer natural beauty of its situation, 

its social life and its renowned hospitality to 

all incomers. Those of us who spent long 

periods of our lives there were privileged to 

have experienced a unique existence. 

William Henderson 

St Andrews 

17

18 

Pensioners’ Reunion 

The lunch party to celebrate Finlays Pensioners’ 26th annual Reunion was 

held on 30 June. Almost 100 guests: present-day directors, executives and 

staff, as well as former employees, gathered in the graceful surroundings 

of The Painters’ Hall in the City of London to catch up with old friends and 

colleagues, hear the latest news of developments within the group and 

enjoy a superb meal. 

Those present.... 

DIRECTORS, EXECUTIVES AND STAFF 

JAMES FINLAY LIMITED 

Michael & Caroline Todhunter 

Rupert Hogg 

Michael Ferguson 

Duncan Gilmour 

James Hughes-Hallett 

Peter Johansen 

Simon Large 

Pat Lockett 

Giles Weaver 

Tim & Susie Blackburn 

Nev Davies 

Paul Wythe 

Debbie Burke 

FINLAY TEA SOLUTIONS UK LIMITED 

Richard & Marie-Alice Darlington 

Tony & Maureen Barcroft 

Rob Corsan 

Mike & Clare Jones 

Mike Mellins 

Anna Schiavo 

Sue Wills 

FINLAY BEVERAGES LIMITED 

Neil Willsher 

Paul Jasper 

PENSIONERS OF JAMES FINLAY LIMITED 

Albert Baigent 

Clifford & Dorothy Bell 

Val Homer 

Ronnie Monk 

Peter & Jan Smail 

Bill & Maureen Stone 

PENSIONERS OF FINLAY BEVERAGES 

Irene & Harry Adams 

Audrey Arnold 

John & June Bryant 

Margaret Burrows 

Terry Cheetham 

Tony & Dorothy Clark 

Barbara Cromarty 

Ethna Duffy 

Honor Elvin 

Jan Feltham 

Shirley & Bob Garnett 

Barry & Susan Gibson 

Dorothie Hardy 

John & Rita Heath 

Gordon & Rhona Hill 

Ted Jones & Marilyn Carpenter 

Ernie Morgan 

Raymond & Anneke Orr 

Elfi & Fred Osborn 

Sidney & Gladys Paine 

David & Hilary Payne 

Olive Rimmer & Rosemary Lacey 

Mike & Mari Robbins 

Ron & Sylvia Smith 

John Tomlinson & Jenny Tomlinson Walsh 

Eric Webb 

Elsie Wilshire & Diana Childs 

PENSIONERS OF TEA COMPANIES 

Tim & Anthea Barton 

Jim Coutts 

Geoff Field 

Norman & Fleur Frew 

Chris & Mitzi Marley 

Gillian Ryan 

Leslie & Pat Stewart-Smith 

Hugo & Gillie Yorke-Davies 

PENSIONERS OF S H LOCK & CO LIMITED 

William & Caroline Atkins 

John & Pearl Large 

PENSIONERS OF BUCHANANS 

WAREHOUSES LIMITED 

Roy Olive 

John Reid


Head Office 

Glasgow Office Outing 

Tea Estates 

Kenya Update Nev Davies 

At the time I 

prepared the last 

update, Kenya was 

recovering from a 

severe drought which 

had very significantly 

reduced the 

availability of all 

grades of tea on the Mombasa auction. 

By the end of March, production of leaf 

tea had fallen to 45% of budget. There 

was an upside to this, however, in that 

prices returned to levels that had not 

been experienced since the late ’90’s, 

and although crop levels on the JF(K) 

estates were well below budget, 

nevertheless the good prices have more 

than compensated for the shortfall over 

the balance of the year. By late August 

the much stronger tea supply position 

in Mombasa had resulted in a fall in the 

prices for all teas; however, they have 

remained reasonably firm and at levels 

better than budget. The JF(K) estates 

have recovered well from the effects of 

the drought, and production is now at 

normal levels. 

The old adage states that every cloud has 

a silver lining but, in the case of JF(K), 

some Estate Managers have come to 

associate that ‘silver’ with hail. The 

damage as a result of hail-stones has 

been particularly bad this year, with 

some areas being repeatedly subjected to 

severe storms and hail damage. In years 

gone by, attempts were made to reduce 

the severity of hail damage by ‘seeding’ 

the storm clouds with microscopic 

crystals, launched from sky-rockets, but 

the cost of doing so usually exceeded any 

benefit. The problem with hail is that it 

affects everything from a pluckable shoot 

down to a new bud; it takes about two 

months for a shoot to form from a new 

bud. 

As a strategic response to the long-term 

trend of falling tea prices, rapidly 

escalating labour costs and a stubbornly 

strong Kenya Shilling, the decision had 

been taken to significantly expand the 

area being mechanically harvested. On 

the one hand, this offered an opportunity 

to significantly lower costs of production, 

but the programme has not been without 

its challenges. Although the Company 

The Full Finlays! 

Glasgow staff (l-r) 

Pat Lockett, Duncan 

Gilmour, Kerr Napier 

and Peter Stabler 

strut their stuff at the 

office outing to a local 

adventure centre on 

25 August. 

had repeatedly stated that employees 

would not be made redundant as a result 

of this change of policy, unfortunately 

this development was interpreted by 

various parties as being against the best 

interests of the Government and the 

Trade Union movement. Fortunately, this 

issue has now been amicably resolved 

and the mechanisation programme is 

being successfully introduced. 

A very thorough study has been 

completed, which revealed that the 

estates do not have sufficient reserves of 

eucalyptus to provide the renewable 

energy requirements for the future needs 

of the Kericho-based businesses. JF(K) has 

now embarked on a five-year programme 

which will see a large area of the old, lowyielding 

tea replaced with eucalyptus. 

Some of the old tea will be replaced with 

new varieties of high-yielding clonal tea, 

to ensure an adequate supply of leaf to 

both the black tea factories and the Tea 

Extracts Division. The clonal tea is much 

better suited to mechanical harvesting, 

and this advantage provides a much more 

attractive return on the very significant 

investment required. 

19

20 


Tea Estates continued... 

Kenya News 

A Home for Kericho's Orphans Duncan Gilmour 

It is a sad fact that the spread of HIV/Aids 

and related illnesses is now the most 

frequent cause of death in Kenya. All too 

often this results in an ever increasing 

number of orphaned children, many of 

whom are also born with the disease. 

For a number of years James Finlay (Kenya) 

has collaborated with the Walter Reed 

Foundation to help fight HIV/Aids by the 

provision of medicines and appropriate 

education programmes. For some time, 

however, Nev Davies and his team have 

been considering how best to help some of 

the many orphaned children in Kericho and 

the surrounding community. In particular 

they wanted to provide a facility which 

would give the children the opportunity to 

build the secure future they might otherwise 

be denied. 

To this end they conceived the idea of 

building a children’s home on a plot of land 

on the Company’s Estate, with construction 

and running costs being met by way of 

charitable donations. Almost before the 

idea got off the ground, the project 

received an amazing boost as a result 

of the generosity shown by participants 

on the 2006 Executive Programme at 

Stanford University in California. 

Rupert Hogg, who had been on this course 

in 2005 and was aware that a fund raising 

Uganda Update Laurie Davies 

After a very 

disappointing 

performance in 2005, this 

year looks set to be a 

record year for JFU, 

certainly in terms of 

average selling prices for 

our black tea and in 

profitability. 

The regional drought that was experienced at 

the end of last year, going into the first quarter 

of this year, was less severe in the west of 

Uganda than in many other parts of the region. 

As a result, tea production volumes were not 

significantly below targets, while the auction 

prices ratcheted up significantly due to the 

shortage of teas in Mombasa. 

This higher level of auction prices was 

sustained for the first eight months of the 

year, but has more recently dropped back to 

lower levels. The outcome for JFU was a very 

strong performance in the first three quarters, 

which will not be matched in the final quarter, 

but will still result in a very satisfactory 

outcome for the year. 

event would be held at the end of the 

programme, asked JB Rae-Smith of Swire 

Pacific Offshore, who attended this year’s 

programme, to persuade his colleagues to 

adopt the children’s home as a focus for 

this year’s fund raising efforts. They did 

not need much persuasion; as a result in 

excess of US $200k was raised, a sum 

which, initial estimates suggest, should be 

sufficient to fund substantially all of the 

construction costs. 

Running for young lives (l-r): Ivan Chu, Wing Cheuk, Lars 

Moerch, Martin Zing, Morten Nielsen, Eric Jackson and 

Dominiek Arnout. 

In Kenya, a task force headed by Nev’s wife 

Petalynn has been investigating similar 

homes in and around Nairobi to ensure that 

the Kericho home incorporates all those 

features and facilities found to best enhance 

the quality of life for the children as well as 

ensuring the right working environment for 

carers and staff. 

A by-product of the regional drought was a 

drop in the water levels of Lake Victoria, 

which is the source of the hydro generated 

electricity for Uganda. This factor, together 

with other capacity constraints, has lead to a 

severe shortage of utility electricity 

throughout the country; this has impacted 

on our factories, all of which have had to 

adapt to these trying circumstances. To the 

credit of the factory and engineering staff, 

the challenge has been met with minimal loss 

of production volume or quality, although 

cost of production has been impacted. 

As it seems that such power shortages will 

remain a feature for several years, there is an 

increasing interest in the gasifier trial being 

conducted at our Muzizi factory. This 

technology uses renewable eucalyptus 

firewood from our forest areas to produce 

gas fuel for a generator engine at a much 

lower unit cost than the traditional diesel 

generators. The Muzizi trial was 

commissioned at the end of last year and has 

been undergoing a period of testing and 

performance evaluation. Despite teething 

Getting a generous 

ball rolling: the 

president of the 

auction committee, 

Kim Wright-Violich. 

A site has now been 

identified and preliminary 

plans drawn up with the 

aim of starting 

construction before the 

end of the year. The initial 

intention is to build a 

home for approximately 

20 children. In addition to 

the home itself, 

accommodation will be 

required for carers and 

staff. All being well the home should be 

ready to welcome its first children before 

the end of next year. 

As the project begins to take shape, those 

involved have become increasingly aware of 

the considerable amount of work required 

to ensure success but all are relishing the 

challenge. Work is being carried out to 

agree an appropriate legal structure and 

on drafting a constitution which will 

include guidelines covering the criteria 

for admission. 

Readers will be kept up to date with 

progress on the construction of this much 

needed facility. The generosity of those 

attending the Stanford Executive Programme 

cannot be overestimated. It is largely due to 

their efforts that the project will be realised 

sooner than might have been expected. 

problems, there is optimism that a 

successful operating level can be sustained. 

Nigel Leakey has joined JFU as Field 

Executive and with his family, is a welcome 

addition to the Mwenge community. He had 

previously been involved in Finlays Flowers 

in Kericho and, much more recently, as a 

Buildings and Civil Engineering consultant at 

JFU. His input into Field operations is 

targeted at raising yields and husbandry 

standards around all the estates. Nick 

Paterson, with his many years of experience 

in Kenya, has been enlisted as a Visiting 

Agent to assist Nigel in his new post. Nick 

knows JFU from its early days, during the 

factory and field rehabilitation phase, and 

is proving invaluable in planning with 

Nigel the next phase of optimizing the 

field operations. 

There is every hope that progress with the 

initiatives referred to above will be reflected 

in the results for next year.

Sri Lanka Update Naresh Ratwatte 

It has been an 

interesting nine months 

for Finlays Sri Lanka Tea 

Estates which, first and 

most importantly, have 

seen an improved 

financial performance 

over those of the past 

five years; secondly, a successful debt restructuring 

and, thirdly, the move of the 

Estates’ head office from Ratnapura to a 

state of the art new building in Ingiriya, 

one and a quarter hours’ drive, south of 

the capital city of Colombo. 

The strong tea prices for the small leaf 

grades and the boom in the rubber market 

during the first nine months of the year, 

strengthened by the contribution from the 

sale of timber, have resulted in a healthy 

financial performance to date this year with 

both companies exceeding budget. 

The reduction in tea production during the 

first half of the season is yet to be recouped. 

The Sri Lankan national production 

has fallen behind 2005 by 2%.The drop in 

volumes at the Colombo Auctions and the 

Sri Lanka News 

Awards Night 

Finlay Tea Estates annual Awards Night was held at a glittering 

ceremony at Waters’ Edge, Battaramulla, on 30 August, an event 

recognising the achievements of estates and factories throughout the 

year 2005. 

The inaugural speech, by Naresh Ratwatte, Chairman Finlay 

Plantations Sri Lanka, was followed by an address by Simon Large, 

Commercial Director James Finlay Limited, on tour from Glasgow. 

Nilantha de Silva, Superintendent of Oodoowerre Estate, concluded 

with a vote of thanks for a truly memorable evening. 

Best Rubber Estate: Bibile Rubber Estate 

Best Tea Estate: Oodoowerre Tea Estate 

Most Consistently Performing Estate: Park Estate 

Best Tea Factory: Park Estate 

Most Consistently Performing Tea Factory: Court Lodge Estate 

Most Consistently Performing Estate: Bibile Estate 

G.W. Wijekoon, Superintendent of Bibile Rubber Estate, 

receiving the award for Best Rubber Estate from JF 

(Colombo) Chairman Kumar Jayasuriya. Bibile also 

topped the ‘Most Consistently Performing Estate’ 

category. 

shortfall in the Kenyan production had an 

impact on auction prices, especially for the 

small leaf grades and the CTC teas which 

sold at very attractive levels. 

The rubber market continues to be strong - 

consistently over 2 US$ per kg. Production 

too during the first nine months has been 

encouraging with our young rubber planted 

in the mid 1990’s in full production. 

The harvesting of timber along with its 

replacement is on schedule and, in 

accordance with our Forestry Management 

Plan, approved by the respective authorities. 

The accelerated planting programme for 

rubber and timber, drawn up by Jim 

Sandom, General Manager, Finlay Forest 

Products, is most appropriate for Sri Lankan 

Estates. We aim, in the medium and long 

term, to produce a diversity of crops; this 

should mitigate any ups and downs 

experienced by our core crop, tea, which 

may result from the vagaries of the weather 

and the influence of global market trends. 

We have completed our planned factory 

investments: the Duckwari Estate new 

CTC/CFU and a drier; a new drier on 

A new award this year 

was for the best 

maintained 

Bungalow/Garden for 

both Superintendents 

and Assistant 

Superintendents, a way 

of looking after our 

wonderful assets. 

Hapugastenne winners 

were Demodera and 

Rosssett (Rookatenne 

Estate) Bungalows 

respectively; while 

Udapussellawa winners 

were Duckwari and 

Heatherset Bungalows. 

New Head Office 

Finlay Tea Estates Sri 

Lanka moved to their new 

head office at Ingirya on 

31 August. Completed in a 

record three months, it 

was declared open by 

Finlays Commercial 

Director, Simon Large who, 

at a simple ceremony, 

thanked everyone who was 

involved in the project and 

Hapugastenne is also in place. These 

investments have enabled us to increase 

both the intake of out growers’ leaf and 

factory efficiencies, especially in the 

consumption of fuel wood. Experiments in 

stack withering and the installation of 

lightweight fans for conserving energy are 

ongoing projects showing very encouraging 

results to date. 

The recruitment of a full time Marketer, 

employed to focus on our estate teas has 

strengthened our controls over the required 

product quality and the brokers. This should 

flow through to the bottom line through 

higher prices for our products: a belated but 

good investment. 

We have obtained ETP certification for all 

our tea factories; nine factories are HACCP 

certified and ten factories are ISO certified. 

Two of our factories, Shawlands and 

Oodoowerre, were awarded the Ceylon 

Quality Certificate by the Sri Lanka Tea 

Board. These are the only two factories 

amongst the Plantation Companies that were 

selected for this prestigious award at a 

ceremony telecast live internationally. 

planted a tree to mark the event. JF (Colombo) Directors Romesh 

Croos Moraes and Sanjoy Ray were also present. 

Ceylon Tea Stars 

Opening the new office at Ingiriya, Simon Large (c) 

and Naresh Ratwatte. 

Shawlands Estate and Oodoowerre Estate of Hapugastenne 

Plantations, were awarded the Ceylon Tea Quality Certificate – One 

Star at a ceremony organized by the Sri Lanka Tea Board, held on 

11 October in Colombo,. These are the first two estates among all 

the regional plantation companies to achieve this honour. 

Both estates have been certified for ISO 9001-2000 and HACCP, 

so vital in meeting global requirements. Now, both aim to win the 

coveted Five-Star status. 

Oodoowerre Estate workers and staff celebrate awards from both Finlays and the 

Sri Lanka Tea Board. 

21

22 


Tea Estates continued... 

Sri Lanka News continued... 

John Keells Awards 

Finlay Tea Estates Sri Lanka swept the 

board with nine awards at the annual 

ceremony held in Colombo on 15 July by 

tea brokers John Keells to recognize the 

top performing estates in the plantation 

industry for the year 2005. 

Shawlands Estate which, over the years, 

has consistently produced top liquoring 

OP grade teas, achieved no less than 110 

top prices in the category Uva Teas. 

Shawlands achieved two all-time record 

prices, RS.1200/- and RS 1060/- for a 

liquoring OP1 Grade in the same category. 

Demodera Estate achieved the highest 

quantity of tea produced by a single 

Tea Factory in the category Uva Teas, 

having sold 1,020,312 kgs of pure 

orthodox teas. Both Shawlands and 

Demodera have obtained ISO 9001 

and HACCP Certification. 

Adawatte Estate, in Lunugala, was also 

recognized for its high sale average of 

Rs.179.71 in the John Keells’ Catalogue 

Uva Teas category. The above three estates 

are managed by Hapugastenne Plantations. 

Madulkelle Estate, under Udupussellawa 

Plantations, achieved the third highest 

average in the category Western Medium 

Grown Teas. 

Tea Trading 

Update Richard Darlington 

As usual there is much 

to report from the FTS 

Leaf Tea Division. 

Mombasa continues to 

have a good year in 

difficult trading 

conditions. At the time 

of writing demand 

remains closely balanced to supply though 

there are signs that more tea will come 

onto the market from now on, so trading 

conditions should become easier. 

The senior managers in Mombasa have 

undertaken a number of business trips 

to new markets and hopes are high that 

business will commence soon to these 

new areas. 

The Malawi tea growing season is about to 

start and the prospects look good for both 

the Malawi tea market as a whole and for 

our trading business in Blantyre. The 

installation of a modern automated tea 

blending and packing system is complete 

and we are now in a position to offer our 

clients the use of this service. 

Shareholders Tour 

Concordia 

On 19 May 2006 Concordia Tea Estate in 

Nuwara Eliya played host to shareholders 

of Hapugastenne (HPL) and Udapussellawa 

Plantations (UPL). 

Eleven luxury coaches brought 371 

shareholders on the five-hour journey 

from Finlay House in Colombo, to 

Kandapola. From here, they travelled to 

the chilly heights of Concordia Estate 

where they were welcomed with a 

refreshing cup of ginger tea. 

Tony Perera, Ranjan Kulatunga, Stewart 

Joseph, Roshini Ranaweera and Dalrene 

Thirukumar acted as tour guides, 

explaining the tea manufacturing process 

in detail for the groups of shareholders. 

On the ground floor the guests saw made 

tea in bags awaiting transport out of the 

factory; on the first floor, the roller and 

tea processing machinery; then, one flight 

up, came what one described as ‘The most 

pleasing sight of golden green: two leaves 

and a bud, in vast quantities, spread out 

on a drier’. 

Finlay Gulf is now in its third full year of 

trading and is performing well ahead of our 

expectations. Business has been concluded 

to buyers in many of the countries that 

surround the UAE. The branch has been 

able to put our Hanoi, Mombasa and 

Colombo offices in touch with new clients 

for Vietnamese, Kenyan and Sri Lankan 

teas. The branch is certainly seeing the 

benefit of being a prominent sponsor at the 

Dubai Tea Forum at the end of February. 

In Hanoi our new trader, James Paling, is 

settling into the Finlay family. Our General 

Manager, Iain Lang, is spending much of his 

time at the Van Hung factory guiding its 

owners through the process of converting 

the factory from orthodox to CTC 

production. Finlays is a sizeable investor in 

this project and tea will be available from 

the factory by the time this magazine goes 

to print. In the next issue we will give 

readers a full report on the project. 

Under Chris Luckhurst in our Morristown 

office the United States business is doing 

Guests were highly appreciative of the 

sumptuous lunch prepared for them, a 

feast accompanied by beautiful floral 

arrangements, a live saxophonist and, 

later, a troupe of dancers. They thanked 

all the staff of Concordia Factory for 

making the tour a warm and unforgettable 

learning experience. 

Appointment 

Rasika Perera joined 

Finlay Plantations Sri 

Lanka as Marketing 

Manager from 1 August 

2006. Previously, Rasika 

had spent nearly 10 

years with John Keells, 

the leading tea brokers 

arm in Sri Lanka, 

latterly as Manager Tea. Rasika brings vast 

experience in tea marketing; we welcome 

him to our team and wish him all the best. 

Retirements 

From Hapugastenne Estate: M.Ramasamy, 

after 29 years’ service and R.K.K.Joseph, 

after 26 years; from Bibile Estate, G.A. 

Manatunga, after 27 years of service. 

well and is busily preparing for the start of 

the new Argentine season. 

Our tea decaffeination business in Hull 

continues to have a good year. Of the 

many challenges faced by the team this 

year the removal of a 100ft brick lined, 

wrought iron chimney stack was perhaps 

the most interesting. Put up in 1900 it 

survived a fire in 1932 that destroyed the 

rest of the factory. Its safe removal was 

made more complicated by its position but 

the team managed the dismantling without 

any problems. The old chimney has been 

replaced by a new one which we hope will 

last for as long as the last one though, also, 

that it will not have to survive a fire!

Tea Extracts 

Update Tony Barcroft 

The tea extracts 

business is doing very 

well worldwide, with 

excellent volume 

growth in North 

America and Europe. 

The cause of this is 

quite simple. Ready to 

drink (RTD) teas are 

seen as a natural and 

healthier alternative to carbonated drinks 

and so, each year, as demand grows at the 

consumer end, it filters back to increased 

demand for our products. This is likely to 

accelerate even further as the major 

beverage companies have started to push 

this trend even harder, with a record 

number of new products being launched 

this year. 

Additionally, the range of speciality tea 

products is increasing, with green, white 

and Rooibos teas being particular 

favourites amongst the launches this year. 

Another trend that you might have seen is 

the steady growth in what we call 

“functional” teas – those that make health 

claims. Obesity is a major and growing 

Beverages 

UK Update Neil Willsher 

I am delighted to report 

that a year of varied 

challenges for Finlay 

Beverages, has 

continued to progress 

well. 

The company’s main raw 

inputs, tea and coffee, 

saw prices moving 

higher during the year, albeit for entirely 

different reasons. Tea purchased under a 

traditional auction system saw prices 

doubling at the end of 2005, as a result of 

the well publicised drought experienced in 

Kenya. These increases were passed on in 

part to the customer in August, when tea 

prices rose throughout the UK retail 

industry. These moves assisted in resolving 

an unsustainable situation which was 

negatively affecting our bottom line. Simply 

put, tea was being sold to our customers at 

a lower price than the price for which it 

was purchased. The situation has improved 

although prices remain stubbornly high 

with, at the time of writing, all eyes on 

whether the Kenyan short rains would 

arrive in November. The coffee market rose 

to seven year highs in September for 

entirely different reasons. Coffee is traded 

as a commodity on the futures markets. As 

such its price is subject to speculation 

which may or may not be based on accurate 

information. In 2006, fund speculation, 

issue in the Western world and tea contains 

a group of chemicals called Catechins that 

accelerate fat burning. Thus it is no 

surprise that we are seeing RTD tea 

products with high Catechin content 

coming onto the market, claiming weight 

reducing properties. We expect this trend 

to continue and gather momentum. 

We are working hard to develop our 

technology to be able to give our 

customers products which are rich in 

these “functional” chemicals. 

Historically, Finlays has focused on Western 

markets, with a strong and growing 

business in North America and Europe. 

However, it is imperative that we start to 

move our sights more towards markets in 

Asia. The reason is quite simple. 

By 2010, China and Japan will together 

consume eight times the volume of RTD 

tea as North America and ten times the 

volume of Europe. In the next issue of 

Finlays Magazine, I will be explaining 

more about what we are doing in Asia 

to accelerate our progress. 

As this is my first review of the Tea 

Extracts business since becoming Managing 

based upon dubious volume estimates from 

Vietnam and Brazil, in combination with 

huge rises in oil and copper positions, 

drove prices higher. 

The UK market for private label packing in 

which we operate, consolidated in late 2005 

with Apeejay becoming the new owners of 

Typhoo tea and subsequently joining forces 

with Gold Crown. These changes will result 

in further challenges due to the alteration 

in the competitive dynamic within the 

industry, especially when the continued 

battle of the brands is taken into account. 

It is pleasing to report that Sainsbury’s, our 

largest customer, continue to reap the just 

rewards resulting from the successful 

implementation of their turnaround plans. 

The new Asda business, which commenced 

in April, progressed well following its 

seamless integration into our normal 

operations. The growth achieved in 2006 

has established Finlay Beverages as the 

largest packer of private label tea in the UK 

retail market. We continue to work with our 

employees and customers in striving to 

remain the partner of choice within the 

industry. 

This growth in our business, combined with 

a fundamental belief in the need for 

continual change and improvement in order 

to sustain our operations, resulted in a 

decision being taken earlier this year to re- 

Director in April 2006, I should like to take 

the opportunity to introduce myself and 

explain something of my background. 

After studying Chemistry at the University 

of Sheffield I spent the early years of my 

career as a scientist with Glaxo Smith-Kline 

(pharmaceuticals) and Courtaulds (paints). I 

then moved over to marketing, spending 

nine years with Procter & Gamble, running 

businesses ranging from detergents to 

beauty care products, in the UK and 

Europe. This was followed by 14 years in 

the retail bakery business, as Managing 

Director of a large UK business, turning it 

from a loss-maker into a solid, profitable 

concern. After a spell in consulting for 

Wolseley (an International building 

products company) I joined Finlay Tea 

Extracts as Managing Director. 

In conclusion, I want to say that I am very 

proud to be involved with Finlays. I think 

we have a great business, with excellent 

hard working people and good future 

prospects. Our best years are yet to come. 

organise the tea factory. The project, due 

for completion in 2007, will increase 

capacities and efficiencies, whilst 

introducing innovative flexibility to both 

our processes and product. 

Underpinning all the progress achieved to 

date are the changes brought about within 

our culture. Key focus has been placed 

upon teamwork, support and respect for 

one another, knowledge sharing, 

communication and expertise. The positive 

consequences of our actions to date have 

seen improved employee motivation and 

morale. 

There have been some interesting 

developments during the course of the year 

within the areas of Corporate Social 

Responsibility and Ethical Trading, where 

greater consumer awareness has been 

reflected in initiatives by our retail 

partners. This has always been at the heart 

of the Group’s businesses, with 

commitment to employees, communities 

and the environment paramount; they are 

areas we feel well placed to address. 

The changing environment in which we 

operate with both its competitive and 

ethical dimensions will remain a key 

challenge, creating in turn both new and 

diverse opportunities for both Finlay 

Beverages and the group as a whole. 

23

24 


Beverages continued... 

UK News 

Expanding Contracts 

In April Finlay Beverages secured a contract 

from HM Prison Service for 100% of their tea 

requirements. This improved on the part-share 

contract previously in place. 

Following the success of the Virgin Trains 

contract, FB hot beverage products are now on 

trial test with South West Trains and South East 

Trains franchises. 

Visits 

Finlay Beverages’ engineers have been crisscrossing 

the Channel, commissioning new 

machinery as part of Project One at South 

Elmsall, learning its uses and running trials. 

Gary Little and Nigel Sutton have made several 

trips to International Packaging Systems in 

In September, a team of tea production operatives, engineers 

and managers from South Elmsall visited UVA (Universal 

Packaging Machines) in Eindhoven, Holland for training 

ahead of delivery of a new polybag machine for the factory. 

Crailshiem, Germany to commission teabag 

machines, while engineers John Cheesmond and 

Chris Ward later underwent related control 

systems training. In September Mike Hickson, 

Project Engineering Manager, and Joe Stenton, 

Production Engineer, visited IMA in Italy to 

undertake a factory acceptance trial on a new 

caddy overwrapping machine. 

Appointments 

John Neale joined the Tea 

Sales Room team in March 

as Tea Buyer and Blender. 

John has worked in the tea 

trade since 1962 when he 

started as a trainee with a 

firm of tea brokers. John 

has known the Finlays 

buying teams in South Elmsall and London for 

many years, and has become a welcome member 

of the Finlays family. 

In June, Tom Blackwall 

joined Finlay Beverages 

from Northern Foods and 

has now settled into our 

Coffee Sales department 

as assistant Coffee Buyer 

and Blender. Tom has a 

food technology 

background and will use his skills in coffee 

blend development and in learning the 

commercial aspects of the coffee trade. 

In July Daniel Dawson 

joined Finlay Beverages as a 

Business Manager for 

Sainsbury’s account. Daniel 

previously worked for Red 

Mill Snack Foods where he 

managed their JS, Co-op, 

Morrisons, Somerfield, 

Waitrose and Lidl accounts. 

In July Doug Moseley joined 

Finlay Beverages from Del 

Monte Foods International 

where he worked for over 

five years as Account 

Manager for their Asda, 

Waitrose and Morrisons 

business. Doug has 20 

years’ grocery industry experience, spanning 

food service, impulse & convenience and, more 

recently, the major multiple trade sectors. Doug 

has been appointed Business Manager for Asda’s 

account. 

Family Fun Day 

Supersize fun 

Finlay Beverages’ first Family Fun Day for 

employees and their families was held on 

27 August at Frickley Cricket Club. 

The event was organised by a group of 

volunteers comprising Robert Landers, 

Suzanne Mason, Aileen Robinson, Paul Iveson, 

Julie Lowery, Cain Atkinson, Terri Waterhouse, 

Joann Witton and Royston Mould. 

Amusements included bouncy castles, a 

penalty shoot-out, face painting, a bungee run, 

a Punch & Judy Show and Sumo wrestling, all 

of which kept the children and most of the 

adults amused. Barbecued burgers and hot 

dogs were served while Paul and Julie manned 

the bar. A tombola stall run by Maureen 

Holden and Margaret Millward raised £415 for 

the local hospice. 

Long Service Awards 

Mike Hickson receiving his 35-year award from Finance 

Director Paul Jasper 

Mike Hickson completed 35 years’ service with 

the company in August. Mike started work 

with George Payne in 1971 in the R&D 

department in Croydon. His first project was 

to design a tilting dragee pan for chocolate 

coating Payne’s ‘Poppets’. Mike moved to 

Beverages in Yorkshire in July 1996, since 

when his business travels have taken him all 

over Europe. He has worked on many projects 

over the years including the Swindon Tea 

Factory, the building of South Elmsall Tea 

Factory and extension, the South Elmsall 

Coffee Factory, the closure and relocation of 

Croydon Coffee Factory, the South Elmsall 

Administrative building and the new Loading 

Dock at South Elmsall. Mike is currently 

working on Projects One and Two in South 

Elmsall. 

The following have received awards to mark 

15 years’ service with the company: Martin 

Cliff, Stock Controller; Dawn Weston, 

Tea Operative; Mark Thompson, QA 

department; George Head, Warehouse: Ann 

Lumb, Tea Operative: Colin Waterhouse, 

Support Operative: Brian Magill, Engineering 

Team Leader: Gina Oxley, C21 Machine 

Operator. 

George Payne Shield 

Golf victor Jon McCormack with Paul Bacon 

On 2 September the 2006 George Payne golf 

tournament took place at Woolley Park Golf 

Club, West Yorkshire. After a very wet and 

windy start, the weather improved and scores 

ended very close. Warehouse Team Leader 

Jon McCormack (pictured with the shield) was 

the winner; second place went to Tea Engineer 

Chris Parker and in third place was IT 

Manager Paul Bacon. Prizes were awarded 

after a meal in the clubhouse. 

Employee Conference 

‘Taking our People With Us’: Diana 

Breeze of Sainsbury's addressing 

the conference. 

The third Finlay 

Beverages 

Employee 

Conference took 

place on 29 

September at The 

Grove, South 

Kirkby. 

Production 

ceased for the 

day as all 250 

employees 

attended the 

programme of 

presentations 

(see ‘Walking the 

Talk’ right). 

Everyone enjoyed 

a meal and 

entertainment by Doncaster comedian Gary 

Marshall before the evening’s fun and games 

which, this year, included casino tables, bingo, 

laser shooting and crazy golf.

Walking the Talk Lee Byers 

At Finlay Beverages’ third annual Employee Conference, guest 

presenters Diana Breeze of Sainsbury’s and Ian Bettles of 

Smallpeice Enterprises, focused on different ways in which 

employees can be empowered to attain improved business 

results through culture change programmes. 

Diana, on behalf of Sainsbury’s, one of our longest established 

customers, explained how their Chief Executive Justin King, 

appointed in 2002, set in motion a major culture change 

programme: ‘Taking Our People With Us’. Various initiatives 

included a ‘Tell Justin’ scheme whereby all 30,000 Sainsbury staff 

were encouraged to send ideas and suggestions for business 

improvement direct to the Chief Executive for reply and action. 

Others involved employees tasting and recommending Sainsbury’s 

products to friends and family; leadership training; colleague 

councils for all managers; and daily ‘huddle’ meetings to discuss 

and agree key priorities for the business. Diana was pleased to 

report that Sainsbury’s have just posted their seventh consecutive 

quarterly improvement in sales growth since the programme began. 

The Asda training quality team meet Finlay Beverages' Russ Fowlkes, Commercial 

Director; Doug Moseley, Asda Business Manager; and Lee Byers, Marketing Controller. 

Ian Bettles of Smallpeice Enterprises entertained the conference 

with a highly individual presentation on better ways of working 

using ‘lean’ principles gleaned from years of experience with 

world class organisations. As an educational charity, Smallpeice 

improves business results by helping organisations to remove 

waste from the production process. The presentation gave 

numerous examples of how simple small changes can make a big 

difference to the end result through careful attention to detail; 

it included some hilarious examples of poor work execution. 

Finlay Beverages then took the opportunity to celebrate their 

success (reported in the Spring edition of Finlays Magazine) in 

gaining substantive new business from Asda, part of Wal Mart and 

one of the world’s largest retailers. The Asda Project Team, with 

Russ Fowlkes as sponsor and Lee Byers as Project Leader, used a 

professional video presentation, combining footage from around 

the South Elmsall site with vox pop style interviews, to explain 

how, in less than nine months, Finlay Beverages had been able to 

deliver a complex project from a blank sheet of paper to a 

complete range of finished products. The video was first class 

and combined footage from around the South Elmsall site 

together with Vox Pop style interviews with team members to tell 

the Asda story. It celebrated the work of everyone involved in 

preparing, pitching for and securing the Asda tea business. 

Finlay Beverages had targeted Asda on the basis that the business 

opportunity was both substantial and a good fit with our existing 

customers, including Sainsbury’s who appeal to a slightly 

different shopper profile. 

The Asda buying and quality team reviewing tea samples at South Elmsall 

(left to right: Dave Cresswell Trading Assistant; Stuart Menzies Trading Manager; 

Sophie Benter, Marketing Manage; Katherine Shipley Product/Quality Manager) 

Beginning with an in-depth analysis of the market and extensive 

store visits, our initial presentation to Asda focused on how we 

might take their tea business forward. A visit in October 2005 by 

Asda to our site in South Elmsall was to prove crucial. Finlay’s 

passion for quality and attention to detail was successfully 

demonstrated in every aspect of our operation. 

Having quoted for Asda’s tea business we began preparations by 

undergoing formal training in project management techniques. 

With only three months to launch, the pressure was on to deliver 

a full range of products from scratch. This presented a number of 

major challenges including the recruitment and training of a night 

shift. It is a tribute to everyone at Finlay Beverages that in such a 

short time we were able to deliver Asda products on schedule 

whilst meeting their stringent quality standards; we even 

managed to deliver some products two weeks early! 

Most rewarding of all, however, is that we were able to achieve all 

of this without letting our normal standards of excellence slip for 

existing customers. In fact, over this same period, we achieved 

Sainsbury’s Hero Supplier status for superlative customer service 

in delivering the right quality, at the right time in the right 

quantity. We were also awarded ‘The Grocer’ magazine Gold 

Award 2006 for Best Own Label Supplier (hot beverages category). 

The challenge, as ever, will be to continue to deliver on quality 

and service each and every day. We can only do this by ‘Taking 

Our People With Us’. 

25

26 


Flowers 

Update Tim Blackburn 

2006 has been a 

difficult year 

for Flowers. 

The combination of 

changing market 

requirements in the UK, 

pressure on prices, 

unfavourable exchange 

rates and rising energy 

costs has presented numerous challenges. 

However I am very pleased to report that, 

thanks to the enthusiasm and commitment 

shown by all the management and staff at 

Flowers, we are now better prepared to 

meet the vagaries of the market and 

remain optimistic about the future. 

The exceptionally warm European summer 

had an adverse effect on the industry in 

general but our Fairtrade markets performed 

well and we are now in the final stages of 

FLO certification of Lemotit farm at 

Londiani; this means that 100% of Finlays 

production will be Fairtrade accredited from 

2007. The extensive investment in crop R&D 

over the last few years is paying dividends 

as our production team completes the 


Fairtrade and Finmax Edgar Mutai 

The FinMax Community Based Group dates 

from January 2003 when, as we reported in 

these pages, Finlay Flowers was accredited 

to the Swiss Fairtrade organisation, Max 

Havelaar. The benefit of this accreditation 

could be summed up as continued access to 

the growing Fairtrade market, using the 

Max Havelaar label; and earned premiums 

from the sale of our products to this same 

market. 

The premiums earned are used to assist our 

workers and members of the surrounding 

community to improve their quality of life 

through socio-welfare and environmental 

programmes. The funds are managed by a 

Joint Body, a committee that includes four 

management representatives and 18 elected 

general workers. 

A delegates system links the general workers 

and the Joint Body committee. The object of 

the system is to assist in the dissemination 

of information and in identifying projects 

which the workers would like to see 

implemented. Each delegate serves a three 

year term. 

In 2004 Finlay Flowers became accredited to 

Flower Labeling Organization International 

(FLO) which has a working relationship with 

Max Havelaar. The resulting increased access 

to a larger Fairtrade market has led to a 

growth in sales which, in turn, has meant 

higher premiums for FinMax. 

In June 2006, Max Havelaar merged with 

Flower Labeling organization (FLO) under the 

Fairtrade logo and with its headquarters in 

Bonn, Germany. 

Here are some of the projects supported 

by FinMax 

● Two anaesthesia machines have been 

purchased, one each for the Central 

Hospital and the Kericho District Hospital. 

● Ndege Chai Loan Scheme: FinMax has 

deposited Ksh 10,000,000 with Ndege Chai 

important transition from trials to 

commercial production. Specifically spray 

roses, alstromerias, freesias, zantadeschias 

and lilies are now all in commercial 

production and we have high hopes for the 

extensive list of fillers and summer crops 

being developed both in Kericho and at 

Londiani. 

Perhaps the most significant project 

currently underway is the extensive rose 

replanting program at FF1 and FF2 where 

Nev Harries and Fred Okinda in particular 

have worked extremely hard to identify and 

select varieties which will perform well in 

our conditions, delivering a carefully 

balanced combination of quality, headsize 

and yield. This program is an important 

step in ensuring that Finlays continues to 

remain competitive with industry 

benchmarks whilst ensuring that we 

do not compromise on quality. 

The development of Lemotit farm is almost 

complete with 20.2ha now in production, 

the dam filling ahead of initial forecast and 

post harvest facilities in the final stages of 

construction. John Magara and his team 

to be used as a revolving loan fund for 

employees of James Finlay (Kenya) who are 

eligible for union membership. Based in 

Kericho, the fund is intended to be used 

for emergency loans at a subsidized 

interest rate of 10% per annum, for a 

maximum period of 12 months. 

FinMax Chairman James Bwana presents an anaesthesia 

machine, financed by the community-based fund, to Dr Betty 

Langat, superintendent of Kericho General Hospital. On the left 

is Eric Korir, Legal and Personnel Affairs Manager, Chepkembe. 

● A Bursary Scheme for JF(K) employees’ 

children ensures that 20 boys and 20 girls 

who have earned good passes gain entry to 

national secondary schools. 

● FinMax donated 320 desks and chairs to 

Flower 2 Primary School and purchased 

teaching equipment including two 

computers and a photocopier. 

● Friends of the Mau Watershed: FinMax 

bought two motorbikes for FOMAWA field 

staff. 

● FinMax donated sports equipment to 13 

company primary schools and to Marinyin 

Secondary School. 

● A FinMax Bursary Scheme has given part 

sponsorship to three university students, 

from Kericho, Bomet and Bureti districts, 

for the duration of their courses. 

● Support for the physically disabled and 

for babies in care homes established due 

to the ravages of HIV/AIDS 

have done an excellent job in the field to 

ensure that this project is sustainable, 

successful and provides a template for any 

expansion programs in the future. 

Significant progress has been made across 

the board in the less glamorous areas of 

cost management, more efficient 

purchasing and procurement practices; the 

roll-out of the JF(K) Enterprise Resource 

Planning system has required substantial 

management attention. All these initiatives 

will pay dividends in 2007 but it is 

essential that we continue to improve 

productivity and seek out efficiencies 

wherever possible. 

As we look forward to 2007 we should 

reflect on the significant achievements of 

2006 which included the acquisition of 

Omniflora and Jet Flowers in February. 

These, in conjunction with our traditional 

commercial relationships in the UK, have 

presented interesting opportunities on the 

Continent which we look forward to 

developing together in the future. 

● The purchase of eight tents for use by 

employees and their dependants in their 

social programmes. 

● Tree nursery project in support of 

reforestation: all JF(K) employees can 

purchase seedlings at a subsidised price 

from the FinMax tree project. A variety of 

indigenous, exotic and fruit tree seedlings 

are available. 17,000 seedlings had been 

sold by the end of September 2006. 

● Baby day care centers are up and running 

in both Flower 1 and 2. Currently there are 

a total of 150 children enrolled in both 

crèches. 

● Training schemes continue to build the 

capacities of the Joint Body committee. 

New projects continue to be identified. 

Appointment 

Flavio Pelizzoli joined 

Finlays in November, as 

Director of Supply 

Chain Logistics 

(Omniflora / Finlay 

Flowers) based in 

Nairobi. Flavio, who is 

Canadian, has come 

from Dubai where he 

was regional general manager of Barloworld 

Logistics Middle East LLC. He brings over 

16 years of business-related management 

and advisory experience in Sub-Saharan 

Africa to his new job. His role, divided 

equally between Finlay Flowers and 

Omniflora/ 

Jet is to improve the close cooperation 

between the various parties involved in 

the production, post-harvest handling, 

road and air-transport of cut flowers in 

order to improve quality control and 

integrity of the cool chain.

Sri Lanka 

Update Kumar Jayasuriya 

“Enriched by the past, 

transforming the 

future”: that’s the 

winning catchphrase 

one of our divisions 

came up with to capture 

the essence of Finlay’s 

Colombo operations. 

With the Company having been involved 

with commerce and industry in Sri Lanka 

since 1893, the first part of the phrase is 

self evident. Today, defining the years, if 

not decades to come is exactly what’s 

happening. 

In July of this year we invested in the 

installation of three brand new IMA C27 

machines for a total amount of USD 2.1 

million at our facility in Welisara on the 

outskirts of Colombo, the first company in 

Asia to invest in this cutting-edge 

technology. Catering to an increasingly 

environmentally aware and concerned 

consumer, the machines will produce 

“stapleless” teabags. These will be fully 

natural, with the string being attached to 

the bag by a knot. The three machines 

will significantly increase the overall 

production capacity. 


Cathay’s Rebranding Incentive Julian Lyden 

Cathay Pacific’s innovative campaign, Paint 

the Town Green, has changed the thinking 

behind conventional branding practices in 

the air travel industry of Sri Lanka says 

Julian Lyden, Country Manager for Cathay 

Pacific, Sri Lanka and The Maldives. 

The campaign took the form of a 

competition, in which local travel agents 

were requested to decorate their premises 

using green, Cathay’s corporate colour, along 

with other branding material. The 

promotion was partly aimed at building 

goodwill between the Company and its 

stakeholders; Cathay Pacific believes that 

much of their success depends on their 

value chain partners. 

The challenge was well received and a 

number of agencies - duly provided with cut 

out models, posters, model aircraft and 

other display material - enthusiastically took 

Sports Carnival 

Recreational activities include staff of all segments. 

Our existing markets have served us well, 

but we are now actively seeking to create 

new avenues and buyers for our value added 

products. A few prospective customers in 

Europe and America have evinced interest 

in this respect. I personally believe that 

there is great potential for expanding in 

India as well. 

The temperature controlled warehousing 

and logistics division, which is now in its 

second year of operation, has recorded 

encouraging performance on the back of 

healthy occupancy levels, whilst catering to 

some of Sri Lanka’s (and internationally) 

best known brands for frozen and chilled 

products. To meet increasing demand and to 

meet the evident need for international 

standards of cold chain compliance, the 

Company is nearing completion of an 

extension to the existing facility that will 

double present capacity (see page 28). The 

additional space will deliver economies of 

scale through greater operational 

efficiencies incorporated in the design and 

lower incidence of fixed costs. We also hope 

to capitalize on our first mover advantage by 

branching off into logistics and distribution 

services to selected clients, so as to provide 

the full cycle of cold chain compliance. 

part in decorating their offices, always 

following the Cathay logo guidelines. 

They reported having enjoyed the novel 

opportunity of getting a break from busy 

schedules and spending some creative time 

with their colleagues. 

Rewarding our travel partners for their time 

and innovative thinking, Cathay Pacific gave 

away seven return air tickets to Singapore or 

Bangkok as the first prize, whilst the second 

and third runners-up received exclusive 

Cathay branded gift items for the whole 

office team. 

In tandem with the travel agents’ unique 

branding exercise, a major facelift has added 

colour and exuberance to the Cathay Pacific 

City Office in Colombo. Our premises have 

been given a corporate identity in keeping 

with our superior product - a global 

network, a staff and a service straight from 

More than 700 employees of the James 

Finlay Group and their families took part 

in a Sports Carnival held on 17 September 

at the Bloomfield Sports Ground in 

Colombo. 

Participants, representing James Finlay & Co. 

(Colombo) and its subsidiary and associate 

companies, were divided into four teams or 

houses, each named after a different local 

herb believed to generate strength. 

The morning got off to a good start with 

such athletic events as the marathon, 100 

metres races for women and men and a 400 

metres men’s race. The post-lunch session 

Human resources have been the other area 

of focus during the last few months, where a 

range of initiatives from improving working 

conditions to fostering greater employee 

participation in decision making, promoting 

team spirit and, most importantly, building 

up the capability of our people through 

training and development have been 

launched. As far as is practically possible, 

company recreational activities now include 

staff of all segments. 

Our social responsibility programs are now 

drilled down to the divisions with each 

making efforts to participate actively in the 

programs selected. Needless to say that 

health and safety teams are formalized 

and are active at each worksite. 

Our financial results at the end of the third 

quarter have been generally satisfactory 

with Group overall profit comfortably 

exceeding the budgeted profit even 

excluding a one-off profit earned on sale 

of investments during the year. 

Despite the problems and issues, in Sri 

Lanka the opportunities for business abound 

and continue to flourish with each of our 

resilient businesses creating environments 

in which to flourish and grow. 

the heart which have won us the title of 

Airline of the Year, for the third time. 

The new branding provides our walk-in 

customers with a warmer and more friendly 

ambience, appropriate both to promoting 

confidence in flying with Cathay Pacific 

Airways and as a backdrop to the highly 

professional service provided by our 

dedicated front line staff at the counters. 

Cathay’s Colombo office facelift sets the pace 

was dedicated to fun and games including a 

tug-of-war, bucket relay and three-legged 

race. Special events were also held for the 

managers and guests while, for the children, 

there was a drawing competition. 

Prizes were also awarded for the best 

cheering squad and for the best decorated 

“house”. 

Winners of the individual and group events 

were awarded handsome prizes. The overall 

winner was Harthavariya House, made up of 

employees of the Tea Estates sector. 

27

28 


Sri Lanka continued... 

Twice the Freeze Gihan Jayasinghe 

External view of the existing facility 

Our Cold Storage operation at Welisara has expanded with the 

addition of a further 4,500 pallet spaces, thus consolidating 

its position as the largest and most sophisticated cold store in 

Sri Lanka. 

The second phase, inaugurated in November this year, will provide 

an additional 30,000 cubic meters (1 million cubic feet) of 

refrigerated storage space and will not only permit greater efficiency 

in operation but also greater flexibility in the type of products 

stored and services offered. 

US 

Finlay Industries Update Darrell Armbruster 

Through August, the 

year 2006 resulted in 

new record sales 

revenue for Finlay 

Industries. YTD 

revenues are ahead of 

2005 by $1.8 million. 

This continued growth 

in revenue is largely 

attributable to the 

sustained growth of new inbound 

inventory from our existing 

manufacturing customers. Based on 

YTD figures, Finlay Industries is likely 

to receive over 7 million pounds of new 

inventory by year-end. This exceeds 

prior year record levels by over 

500,000 pounds. 

In order to accommodate this increase of 

inbound inventory we have had to re-think 

our retention levels of older, slower moving 

inventory. Rather than continue to build 

new warehouses to accommodate the 

receiving of fresh inventory, we have been 

working with the OEM’s and our operations 

department to develop more aggressive 

purge algorithms, which sooner identify 

"dead" inventory in our warehouses. Once 

this "dead" inventory has been identified, we 

pluck it out of our facilities, freeing up 

space for new inventory. 

The Company’s focus is on the premium end of the cold storage 

market, offering a broad spectrum of value-added services, such 

as order picking, loading/ dispatching according to customer 

requirements, inventory management using a state-of-the-art online 

warehouse management system and more, whilst servicing a 

number of industries including Dairy, Poultry, Agriculture and 

Processed Meats, to name but a few. 

Says Group Chairman, Kumar Jayasuriya: “This build was a natural 

progression for us. We listened to our customers’ needs and growth 

plans and were confident that we could offer a premium product, 

exceeding their expectations; this explains our expansion plans 

within a year of starting commercial operations”. 

Work is progressing on a new freezer room. 

We have coined the term "mining" for the 

process, which efficiently removes the dead 

inventory without disrupting the majority of 

the warehouse. We can actually purge 

inventory out of a facility and, at the same 

time, keep approximately 85-90% of the 

facility’s inventory available for sale. In 

addition to freeing up substantial space, the 

purging process results in the older 

warehouses becoming a great deal more 

productive in revenue generation. 

Through the first eight months of 2006, the 

purging department was able to remove 

approximately 10,000 pallets of dead 

inventory, freeing this space for new, 

inbound inventory. For this year, at our 

current rate of purging, we should be able 

to absorb approximately 90% of our entire 

incoming inventory into existing older 

facilities, without expanding into our newest 

facility building #23. 

With the automotive industry exceeding 

over 59% of our business, we have made the 

initiative to spread our business risks over 

multiple industries. As a result of this plan 

the sales department has recently signed 

our newest customer, Bucyrus International. 

Bucyrus is based in North America and 

is the world’s largest manufacturer of 

mining drag lines and electric shovels. 

The company was started in 1880; they 

supplied 77 of the 102 steam shovels used 

to dig the Panama Canal in 1904. The 

company currently has approximately 

70,000 machines operating in various parts 

of the world. Although the program will 

start slowly, we expect Bucyrus to contribute 

revenues of approximately $250,00 by the 

end of year one. Other prospective 

customers include Kohler (commercial 

plumbing), Ditch Witch (cable trenching) 

and Astec Underground (trenching). 

Safety continues to be paramount at Finlay 

Industries. In addition to our monthly 

safety meetings, ergonomic audits, daily 

stretching exercises, and annual employee 

health risk assessments, I am pleased to 

announce we have reached a new plateau 

regarding employees’ zero lost time days at 

work. At the end of September 2006 we 

reached 1,385 safe workdays without lost 

work time. This equates to approximately 

five calendar years. In the US this type of 

safety record is very rare (less than one 

tenth of one percent of companies ever 

achieve it). If all goes well, by February 

2007 we hope to celebrate 1,500 continuous 

safe workdays at Finlay Industries. We are 

very proud of this accomplishment and I 

personally thank all our employees for 

keeping safety first and foremost in both 

their work and personal lives.

US continued... 

Finlay Industries News 

Appointment 

James A. Butterbrodt has 

been promoted to Vice 

President of Finance and 

Chief Financial Officer, 

effective 1 July 2006. 

In addition to being 

responsible for all treasury 

and accounting related 

activities, Jim will oversee 

the Human Resource 

functions.. 

Jim has recently completed his MBA course work 

and graduated with distinction from Keller 

Graduate School in Milwaukee. In addition he has 

earned a B.A. degree from Upper Iowa University 

and a CMA certificate from the Institute of 

Management Accounts. Jim has been with the 

company 11 years and lives in Beaver Dam with 

his wife Jayne and three children. 

Pakistan 

Update Irfan Vazeer 

The year to date has 

seen a further 

improvement in 

earnings from all the 

main divisions of 

Finlays Pakistan. 

The results from the 

P&I Division, while 

slightly down on budget, 

are of course dependent on the demand 

from our Principals. Nevertheless, through 

sustained marketing efforts and superior 

performance, we have proven in the past 

that revenue can be improved through an 

insistence on high levels of customer 

Pakistan News 

Karachi Visitors 

Among the visitors welcomed to 

Pakistan this year have been: 

Graham Sanders, of Swire Cold Storage; 

Kobayashi Yasutada, Director of NYK Line, 

India; Steve Shin Masuda, General 

Manager of NYK Line, Asia; Masumi 

Sahashi, Deputy General Manager of TSK 

Lines; Anthony L. Cruz, Director/General 

Manager of NYK-FilJapan Shipping E- 

Services Corporation (TSK Line Manila 

Asia Marketing Center); and Leandro J. 

Ramos, Assistant Team Leader of the 

same company. 

Long Services Awards 

On 26 September, Finlay Industries, Inc. held its Length of Service Awards banquet at Old Hickory Country 

Club. Honorees this year are (front row, l-r): Deborah Neuman, Beverly Kotulski (20 years), Ellen Wallendal 

and Donna Vick; (middle row, l-r): Linda Carter, Bonnie Steindorf, Debra Sires and Mary Karst; (back row, l-r): 

Arland Kluewer (30 years), Michael Matuszeske, Jeffrey Gilhart and Michael Stange (25 years). 

service. As a result we are confident that 

the Division will close the year with an 

improved performance during the last 

quarter. The Survey and Tally Division goes 

from strength to strength and is beginning 

to become a significant contributor to 

Branch revenues 

During the year we have had some success 

in increasing the income stream from 

tenants renting space in Finlay House 

in Karachi. 

The Shipping Division which is responsible 

for generating the bulk of the Branch’s 

profits has had a good year with continued 

growth arising from a particular focus on 

NYK/JF Golf Tournament 

A golf tournament, sponsored by chief 

hosts NYK Line with James Finlay Limited, 

was held by the Karachi Japanese 

Association on 27 April at the Arabian Sea 

Country Club. 

Among the guests were staff of the Japanese 

Consulate and the Japanese School, More 

than 10 major Japanese trading houses were 

represented by Arae San of Indus Motors 

The event was much appreciated among the 

influential Japanese community which 

enjoys an excellent relationship with its 

counterparts in Karachi’s business circles. 

inbound movements from Japan and from 

Far and South East Asia. Outbound 

business to North America continues to be 

important with both volumes and revenues 

experiencing healthy growth. A new, direct, 

larger capacity service has been introduced 

between Japan and Karachi which will 

further increase volumes resulting in a 

corresponding improvement in revenues. 

We foresee the current trends continuing 

for the remainder of the year and are 

confident of again achieving a record 

pre-tax profit for the Branch. 

Operations Manager Salim Khan presents the trophy to 

K. Ayukawa, CEO of Suzuki Motor Company, Pakistan. 

29

30 

Announcements 

Births 

Adil 

On May 24 2006, to Sara, wife of 

Adil Mughal, Junior Officer, Accounts 

Department, JF Pakistan, a son 

Hammad Adil. 

Brohier 

On 5 March 2006, to Mayumi and 

Alvin Brohier, a son, Ethan Dale. 

Mayumi is Ticketing & Reservations 

Officer, Airline Division, JF & Co. 

(Colombo). 

Canning 

On 9 June 2006, to Geraldine Gundill, 

Machine Operator in Finlay Beverages’ 

Tea Factory, South Elmsall, and 

John William Canning, a son 

John William (jnr). 

Ferdinando 

On 22 May 2006, to Natasha, and 

Dilum Ferdinando, a daughter, 

Neshi Clare. Both parents work for 

JF & Co (Colombo), Natasha as General 

Clerk, Insurance Department and Dilum 

as Staff Officer, Tea Department. 

Hughes 

On 9 August 2006, to Heather and 

Craig Hughes, a son, Carter Thomas. 

Heather is the Cash Application 

Specialist/ Receptionist at Finlay 

Industries, Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. 

McCormack 

On 11 August 2006 to Michelle 

Robinson and Jon McCormack, 

a daughter, Kaitlin. Jon is team leader 

in Finlay Beverages’ Coffee Factory. 

Nanayakkara 

On 4 August 2006, to Shanika, wife 

of Dinendra Nanayakkara, Group 

Systems Auditor, JF & Co. (Colombo), 

a son, Dhiren Nevaan. 

Perera 

On 3 September 2006, to Jeeva, wife 

of Samantha Perera, Messenger, Tea 

department, JF & Co. (Colombo), 

a son, Jerom Sashene. 

Rajapaksha 

On 4 July, 2006, to Madhu, wife of 

Shanaka Rajapaksha, Senior IT 

Executive, JF & Co. (Colombo), 

a son, Rivinu Nesara. 

Sarfaraz 

On July 19 2006, to Farzana, wife 

of Sarfaraz Ahmed, Junior Officer, 

Accounts Department, JF Pakistan, 

a son, Muhammad Noman. 

Sesath 

On 16 August 2006, to Dilhani, wife 

of Indika Sesath, Staff Officer, Tea 

department, JF& Co. (Colombo), 

a daughter, Enuri Methmali. 

Siddique 

On 15 May 2006, to Mehnaz, wife 

of Mr. Siddique, Domestic Staff, PNI 

Department, JF Pakistan, 

a daughter, Fiza. 

Singh 

On May 24 2006, to Kanta, wife 

of Deepak Singh, Domestic Staff, 

PNI Department, JF Pakistan, 

a daughter, Darpreet Kour. 

Thamira 

On 2 September 2006, to Shalini, 

wife of Mahesh Thamira, Staff Officer, 

Finance & Accounts Division, JF & Co. 

(Colombo), a son, Randyn Shalinka. 

Toqueer 

On 22 June 2006, to Atiya, wife 

of Toqueer-ul-Hassan, Junior Officer, 

Accounts Department, JF Pakistan, 

a daughter, Iqra Tul Iman. 

Weeraratne 

On 21 August 2006, to Chamari, wife 

of Roshan Weeraratne, Cargo Services 

Supervisor, Airline Division, JF & Co. 

(Colombo), a son, Yashira Nikith. 

Weston 

On 29 July 2006, to Dawn and 

Stuart Weston, a son, Luke James. 

Both parents work at Finlay Beverages, 

Dawn in the Tea Factory and Stuart 

in Engineering. 

Marriages 

De Silva – Perera 

On 4 May 2006, in Colombo, 

Nalin De Silva, Storekeeper, Export 

Processing Department, JF & Co. 

(Colombo), to Arshula Perera. 

Lokuge – Senadhipathira 

On 22 June 2006, in Colombo, 

Sulochana Senadhipathira, Staff 

Officer, Agencies Division, JF & Co. 

(Colombo), to Lasitha Lokuge. 

Silva – Wanniarachchi 

On 12 August 2006, In Colombo, 

Suresh Silva, Storekeeper, Export 

Processing department, JF & Co. 

(Colombo), to Dulani Wanniarachchi.

Deaths 

Boyce 

On 29 April 2006, at Guildford, 

Joyce Constance, aged 78, widow of the 

late Thomas Boyce, ex George Payne. 

Briam 

On 7 August 2006, at Eastbourne, 

Reginald Henry Briam, aged 86, retired 

Clerical Supervisor with George Payne 

1959-1984. 

Coen 

On 2 July 2006 in London, Ontario, 

Cecil Malcolm (Sammy) Coen, aged 86, 

late of James Finlay’s London office. 

He leaves a widow, Isabel. 

Dobson 

On 1 August 2006, in Dumfries, 

James Dobson, aged 72. Jimmy retired 

in 1994 as commissionaire at James 

Finlay’s Glasgow office. He is survived 

by his widow, Janette. 

Emms 

On 21 August 2006, aged 71, 

Raymond Andrew Acfield Emms, 

of Lupiac, France. He retired from 

The African Highlands Produce Co. 

in 1977 and leaves a widow, Annette 

Sheila. 

Farnell-Watson 

On 27 October 2006, in London, 

Arthur Vivian Farnell-Watson, 

aged 84, former Director of S.H.Lock. 

Fenlon 

On 22 April 2006, at East Grinstead, 

Surrey, Winifred May Taggart, aged 93, 

widow of Eric Victor Fenlon, late of 

P.R. Buchanan. 

Foames 

On 6 April 2006, at Southwark, 

Ann Elizabeth, aged 68, retired 

Production Worker with George Payne 

at Tower Bridge, 1977-1991. 

Gates 

On 29 May 2006, at Epsom, 

Ethel Beatrice (Pauline), aged 80, 

widow of the late P. B. Gates, Sales 

Manager with George Payne. 

Ilieve 

On 20 February 2006, at Reigate, 

Nancy Olive Passmore, aged 85, 

widow of the late Ernest James Edwin 

Ilieve, Company Director (Tea), 

George Payne. 

MacPhail 

On 9 April 2006, in Rutherglen, 

Jessie MacPhail, aged 86. Miss 

MacPhail, a former secretary at James 

Finlay’s Glasgow office, retired in 1974. 

Mitra 

On 30 July 2006, Samir Kumar Mitra, 

aged 84, formerly Cost Accountant 

Manager in the Calcutta office of 

James Finlay/Tata-Finlay/Tata Tea. 

He leaves his widow, Krishna, 

and daughter, Anuradha. 

Murchie 

On 16 July 2006, at Invergordon, 

Marguerite Murchie, aged 89, widow 

of William Hunter Murchie, late tea 

planter with The Consolidated Tea 

& Lands Co. in Bangladesh. 

Paul 

On 11 September 2006, at Tunbridge 

Wells, Beatrice Rose, aged 87, formerly 

Sweet Factory Supervisor (Paper Stores) 

with George Payne, 1932-1978. 

Prior 

On 10 April 2006, in the London 

Borough of Sutton, Albert George, 

aged 91, retired Stock Control 

Supervisor, George Payne. 

Whicker 

On 7 August 2006, in Croydon, 

David Albert, aged 66, retired 

Factory Worker with George Payne.

News - Finlays

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