SLIP honours industry veteran Sathis Abeywickrama as Packaging Professional 2020

Printing industry veteran Sathis Abeywickrama, Founder and Managing Director of Flexiprint (Pvt.) Ltd and its sister company Print USA (Pvt.) Ltd, was recognised and honoured for his

dedicated services to the printing and packaging industry by the Sri Lanka Institute of Packaging (SLIP) and bestowed the prestigious Packaging Professional of the Year 2020 award, at Sri Lanka Packaging Awards - Lanka Star 2022, held at Hotel Galadari, recently. 
Giving credence to the trailblazing personality, who revolutionised the industry with his vision, dedication and leadership, Print USA (Pvt.) Ltd won seven Bronze awards, four Silver awards and four Gold awards while Flexiprint (Pvt.) Ltd won six Bronze awards, seven Silver awards and four Gold awards and a Platinum Trophy as the Overall Winner, with the greatest number of winning entries in the corporate categories. 

Abeywickrama established his mark in the printed packaging industry both locally and internationally in his illustrious career of well over four decades. 
Abeywickrama started his career as a management trainee in sales and marketing at Aitken Spence Printing just after his A/L exams. There he decided to direct printing from commercial printing into printed packaging, supporting value-added Sri Lankan products. This was a time that new tea companies came into the market, producing value-added tea products such as packeted teas and tea in bags. Thereafter, he left to pursue his own path. Working for a while as a print buyer, he started his own company, Print USA (Pvt.) Ltd, utilising the exposure to the trade he received in marketing offset printed packages to the tea trade. 

With the success of Print USA (Pvt.) Ltd and with the tea market greatly embracing tea bags, Abeywickrama’s customers persuaded him to start producing the most important ingredients for the tea bag: teabag tags and teabag envelopes. He then started Flexiprint (Pvt.) Ltd in 1994, with the goal of offering locally produced, premium printed tea tags and tea envelopes to the value-added tea trade. 

“My goal was to support value-added Sri Lankan products such as tea, rubber, spices and lately garments, through quality printed offset packaging. Today, Flexiprint and Print USA have joined hands and have become great catalysts to the tea trade and other value-added Sri Lankan product trades, becoming well-renowned names worldwide. The two companies now export to the Far East Indian subcontinent, CIS countries, Dubai and the rest of the Middle East and largely to the African continent,” said Abeywickrama.
Flexiprint is the current market leader in Sri Lanka for its manufacture of packaging necessities for tea bags, mainly tea tags and tea envelopes.