Baurs celebrates 125 years with night of glitter and grandeur

A. Baur & Co. (Pvt.) Ltd director board with Central Bank Governor 
Nandalal Weerasinghe

In view of celebrating its historic milestone of marking 125 years of progressive innovation and growth among diverse industry sectors in Sri Lanka, A. Baur & Co. (Pvt.) Ltd., also known as Baurs, held a grand cocktail party capturing the grandeur of its journey, showcasing its resilience and strong commitment throughout the decades and the ambitious and bold plans to take on the future. 

Held on 30th November at the Cinnamon Lakeside Hotel, the event saw the participation of some distinguished personalities in the country. 

“We are immensely proud of our achievements and the continued appetitive for bringing about timely and innovative solutions amidst the many challenges throughout the decades. I would like to thank our valued customers, partners, employees and to everyone who is part of the very fabric that I am of,” said Rolf Blaser, Managing Director/CEO of A. Baur & Co. (Pvt.) Ltd.

Blaser took the audience through the company’s remarkable breakthroughs since its inception, paying tribute to the founder Alfred Baur who went onto setting up the first establishment to focus exclusively on organic and chemical fertilizers including providing farmers with scientific advice. Today, it takes reins as the most high-tech fertilizer factory possibly in the entire region.

The presentation showed how Baurs took the lead to be the first in many initiatives, including the first to build an industrial rail linking the harbor and plantation in 1901, introduce the Henry Ford agricultural tractor in 1919 which was the same year the tractor was built outside America, establish a fully electrified tea factory in 1936, and construct a shock-proof building 
with underground parking in 1941.

And the proceeding years, such as the first mural by the Australian artist Donald Friend in 1960, deploy paddy harvester in 1968 at its Polontalawa Estate where the main living area was designed by renowned architects Geoffrey Bawa and Ulrich Plesner, grow basmati rice in the island in 1975, and the first to register a biopesticide in Sri Lanka in 2020 to control Fall Armyworm. 

Blaser shared Baurs’ entry into others sectors; such as healthcare in 1945 at the time when the deadly malaria was at its peak; plant protection in 1947 where a spray was developed together with Sandoz to save the Ceylon Tea from Blister Blight; aviation industry as GSA for Swissair in 1957; hospitality in 2021 with the world’s leading École hôtelière de Lausanne introducing the Swiss apprenticeship model.

Baurs have also come a long way in its digital transformation since the beginning of 1982 with IBM, and also being the first e-banking (Hexagon) customer of HSBC from 1991. The company also had its first ever upgrade execution of SAP S/4HANA completely off-site last year. Today, its technology infrastructure is one of the best-in-class, integrating cyber security, disaster recovery, sales force automation, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and IoT. 

Blaser further went onto highlight the organic fertilizer challenge which Baurs took on last year, at the time when the country announced its intention to move towards embracing an organic agriculture approach. Baurs had been long involved in various R&D initiatives, for instance from 2017 to date, manure from dairy and poultry farming, sludge, biochar, composting, and introducing vermicompost.