Merrill Joseph Fernando

Merrill Joseph Fernando (born 1930) in Negombo, in the North-west of Sri Lanka. He came from a middle-class family of many children and had a comfortable childhood. When he was 18 he joined the Ceylon tea industry as a taster.

Merrill was one of the first Sri Lankan tea tasters to be selected to learn about tea in Mincing Lane, London. Up until this time, the prevailing colonial system did not believe Sri Lankans were capable of assessing tea as they felt they ate too much curry which would affect their assessment of the taste. However, Merrill was one of five who were selected and trained in London.

It is here that Merrill witnessed a system of colonial exploitation that treated producing countries as raw material suppliers whereas branding and value addition were done overseas and all profits accrued never reached the producers. This greatly disturbed Merrill who dreamed that someday he would create his own brand of tea where the producing country would receive all profits from value addition and thereby get their due recognition. He wanted to bring integrity back into tea. With this intention he became, quite literally, the “face” of his brand, his smiling persona emblazoned on tea packets around the world as he urged people: “Do try it” He wanted to bring quality, authenticity and ethics back to tea. Fresh tea is rich in antioxidants and so he wanted to offer his consumers tea that was garden fresh picked and packed at origin. He strongly believed that consumers had the right to know exactly what they were drinking and so he pioneered the concept of single origin tea

Merrill believes in the philosophy of seeing business as a matter of human service. 10% of all Dilmah profits are channeled to the MJF Charitable Foundation which is working towards the dignified empowerment of underprivileged people around Sri Lanka. Each year, the Foundation cares for over 5,000 children in its Child Development Centres, nurtures over 1000 children through the MJF Kids, empowers women, and has created over 600 entrepreneurs through the Small Entrepreneur Programme – SEP– and uplifted the lives of countless plantation workers. These are only a few of over 100 projects the MJF Foundation implements each year.

In 2007, Merrill extended his commitment to human service by establishing Dilmah Conservation www.dilmahconservation.org which focuses on working towards a more sustainable use of the environment in partnership with IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The Dilmah Conservation initiative aims to foster respect for the environment and ensure its protection by encouraging a harmonious co-existence of man and nature. In 2010, Merrill made a Declaration of a Core Commitment to Sustainability which expanded the Dilmah Conservation scope and scale to include initiatives in the areas of Habitat & Species Conservation – both terrestrial and marine, Ecosystems Restoration, Environmental Education and Culture & Indigenous Communities. In 2016, The Merrill J. Fernando Eco Innovation Awards was initiated calling for breakthrough, purposeful proposals of well-developed concepts and working prototypes that seek to solve current national and global environmental issues in the areas of Waste, Water, Energy, Blue Economy and Biodiversity. “I want to prevent the hardship of young entrepreneurs of today when I compare myself with the hardship that I went through in launching Dilmah Tea.” Merrill J Fernando said at the awards ceremony.

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Wikipedia