Founded | Sri Lanka (1988) |
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Headquarters | Peliyagoda, Sri Lanka |
Key people
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Merrill J Fernando, Malik J. Fernando, Dilhan C. Fernando, Himendra Ranaweera, Roshan Tissaaratchy, Minette Perera, |
Products | Ceylon Tea, Flavoured Tea, Green Tea, Speciality Tea, herbal infusions, Masala Chai, boutique tea - the t-Series Designer Gourmet Tea www.teatimerocks.com, Watte Single Estate Tea www.watteseries.com, White Tea http://white.dilmah.com/, Real Iced Tea |
Website | http://www.dilmahtea.com/ |
Dilmah is a brand of Ceylon tea. The company was founded in 1974 by Merrill J Fernando. The name Dilmah was chosen by combining the first names of Fernando's sons Dilhan and Malik. It is available in over 100 countries including Estonia, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Lithuania, Pakistan, Poland, Russia, Hungary, Canada, Chile, South Africa, Australia, Indonesia, Japan and New Zealand.
In 1985, Merril Fernando convinced the Australian supermarket retailer Coles to stock his brand of tea, Dilmah. He spoke to a Coles buyer about stocking his tea and eventually won him over. In 1988 a Melbourne Coles store started stocking Dilmah on its shelves. It eventually spread to 35 other Coles stores in Victoria and then Woolworths started selling the product as well. Dilmah later exported the tea to New Zealand, where it’s currently the top-selling brand, and also to Europe and North America. When the tea brand launched in Australia in 1988 an advertisement was created and aired on national television. Today Australia makes up 10 percent of Dilmah's global annual retail sales.
June 2013, marked 25 years of the Dilmah tea brand in Australia. As part of the celebration, Dilmah launched "tea caps" that are filled with hand picked tea leaves from specific regions in Sri Lanka that are designed to fit in Nespresso coffee machines. These "tea caps" were released in selected supermarkets around the country. The company also released two new advertisements to promote the "tea caps" one which promoted the Earl Grey "tea caps" and another that promoted the English Breakfast "tea caps". The advertisements feature Peter Kuruvita an Australian chef and restaurateur of Sri Lankan heritage as the Australian ambassador for the brand. The advertisements began airing on July 1, 2013.