Sampath Sofa Manufacturing Company Dibbadda Panandura will invest over Rs. 40 million to construct a modern cushion latex form factory.
Chairman Managing Director, Sampath Sofa, Sampath Fonseka said that with most of the latex form is imported and in some instances the quality is questionable. “Due to this Sofas tend to shrink.”
He said that manufacturing latex form locally would also result in saving huge forex to the country and the price of Sofas in the local market too would come down making the product affordable even to a low income family.
He said that he has already obtained land for this project and he is in the process of importing machinery. “The latex form factory will also increase my value addition to almost 80%.”
Fonseka said that once the factory is operating from next February he also hopes to open his own show room in Colombo and would intensify his exports to Australia and the Gulf when the corona pandemic settles. “For the first time in Sri Lanka I will also introduce the ‘sofa trading concept’ from mid next year.”
He also said that they will also have a mobile sofa repairing unit to attend to minor Sofa repairs since households find it hard to transport sofas.
Asked if he has plans to move in to fabric manufacturing he answered in the negative.
He said that though some ‘orders’ for hotels were temporary halted due to the covid pandemic, there is increase demand from apartment market. “This is because we design sofas according to the diverse designed requirement of architects.
Recalling his path to success, Sampath Sofa began from stitching cushion covers and supplying them to Arpico Super a decade ago ad very low margins. “I soon mastered the technique and started designing sofas and getting them crafted by carpenters in Moratuwa. Due to my personal supervisions these sofas were well accepted in the market and then I started my own carpentry house in Dibbadda Panandura and rebranded the products as Sampath Sofa.”
Sampath Sofa with nearly 200 employees today is the largest supplier of Sofas accounting to nearly 80% of Sofas sold in all leading furniture Department stores in Sri Lanka. He has also won many awards for his craftsmanship.
He was also presented the Gold award in the Wood and Wood based Products category at the Industrial Development Board of Ceylon (IDB) organized annual awards ceremony for the SME sector recently.
Sampath Sofa, was also recognised for occupying the biggest space and for reaching a top sales performance at the Build Sri Lanka Housing Construction Expo 2020, held at the BMICH and organised by the Chamber of Construction Industry of Sri Lanka recently.
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