North Central Province, Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka’s North Central Province is rich with lakes, making the area highly fertile and ideal for paddy cultivation. Located in the heart of the region is Lathpandura Agribiz, which began as a small shop almost 50 years ago and is now a leading player in the rice industry. As a food commodity trader, Lathpandura spent years marketing other companies’ rice products before deciding to set up a facility to market its own brands in 2015.
Today Lathpandura has a daily output capacity of 150 tons and produces parboiled rice varieties like Nadu, Samba and Keeri Samba, as well as raw rice. “In 2015 when we decided to set up a rice mill we had very little technical knowledge about the industry,” says Lathpandura’s Managing Director, Dineth Gunathilake. “We were rice traders but we hadn’t produced rice.” Choosing Bühler, however, has enabled them to “produce a good quality product, reliably, for the last seven years,” he states.
It normally takes around six months for machines to be ready, but since this was pre-engineered it only took three months.
Amrith Gardihewa,
Sales Manager, Bühler
Bühler installed an 8tph plant for Lathpandura but the company’s success led to it deciding to expand its capacity further in 2020. At the time, however, Sri Lanka was experiencing an economic crisis, which meant that Lathpandura wanted to shorten the projected timeline of the expansion project as much as possible. The perfect option turned out to be the first ever installation of Bühler’s UniLine, a transformational, all-in-one standardized package for rice processing that cuts both costs and energy consumption and optimizes project execution time – without the need for multiple suppliers and contractors. UniLine was the ideal choice as it’s “similar to a plug-and-play solution”, says Dineth Gunathilake.
Bühler supplied the machines along with the pre-fabricated structure and automation system, providing a comprehensive solution encompassing everything from pre-cleaning to color sorting. While a project of this scale would normally take at least six months to deliver, Bühler was able to execute the entire project in around half that time.
Installing UniLine has also meant a much smaller plant footprint, with a significant reduction in power consumption. The solution, which was finalized in November 2022, is also far easier to maintain and requires less labor than the company’s previous 8tph plant, while end-to-end processing time is far quicker. This has allowed Lathpandura to boost its productivity substantially, taking it to the next level of success.
We chose Bühler because we felt they offered the best engineering advice to design the most optimal plant.
Dineth Gunathilake,
Managing Director, Lathpandura Agribiz
Gupfenstrasse 5
Uzwil
9240
Switzerland
