Merrill Fernando, Founder and Chairman of Dilmah Tea and of the MJF Charitable Foundation, has been a dedicated tea man for more than 60 years. But he is so very much more than that! Through his tenacity, integrity, vision and generosity, he has changed the Ceylon tea industry for the better and, by investing profits back into that community, has improved the lives of countless people in his native Sri Lanka.
Born in May 1930, Merrill finished his education just as Ceylon gained its independence in February 1948. His ambition was to be a tea taster and to work in the industry that made his country famous. It was during school holidays that he began to think about his future and he explains: “I spent a lot of time on friends’ tea estates and came to understand the structure, the recruitment system, and the different jobs of the workers, the supervisors and the managers. I grew to love the tea industry, but I never imagined how things would turn out later!”
In 1950, he gained a place on a new scheme that, for the first time, allowed local young men to take up apprenticeships as trainee tea tasters. But when that came to an end, he could not break into an industry dominated by the British. Tasting remained closed to people like Merrill, no matter how talented they were. Instead he took a job in the oil business, biding his time until the right opening into the world of tea presented itself.
Eventually, he was taken on by a British tea company and was sent to London to learn more about the buying and selling, blending and marketing of tea. He began to understand how teas from several different origins were purchased as cheaply as possible and blended to create the taste that suited the typical British palate. He realized that the origin of the tea was lost in the blend and that the only important factor was the price. “I saw good quality Ceylon teas going into blends and realized that the quantity being used was gradually going down and down, because the benders were sourcing cheaper teas from other countries. I could see that there was little or no future for Ceylon tea.”
And so began his quest to market not just tea but Ceylon tea and to make the world sit up and take notice of this important origin. But to do this, the basic systems and structures of the Ceylon tea industry had to change so that recognition and profits went not to the British tea companies in London but to the workers who grew and processed the teas in Ceylon. And in order to bring about those changes, Merrill had to stay focused and determined. It also meant confronting shipping companies, British institutions, government officers, people in positions of power and at times making enemies of people who had once been his friends. It was never an easy task and government controls, land reform acts, political instability and the complete restructuring of the Ceylon tea industry in the 1970s added to his problems.
Merrill already had strong connections with Russia, New Zealand, Australia, the U.S. and Canada through his earlier trading experiences and he slowly built a reputation in those countries as a reliable trader of high quality Ceylon teas. He was classed as the fourth largest exporter of Ceylon tea; he travelled widely to form personal relationships with all his customers; he advised and guided his buyers as to which teas to buy for the best quality at the best price. And gradually, he worked out a long-term plan of action: “I began to recognize the fact that customers couldn’t get the teas that they enjoyed, so I decided that I would move away from the export of bulk tea and create my own brand that would sell 100 percent pure Ceylon tea, packed at source. What I wanted to do was offer the consumer a better deal while at the same time creating a fair deal for the Ceylon tea farmers.”
And so, in 1988, Dilmah was born. The name is a combination of the names of his two sons, Dilhan and Malik, who at the time were still small boys but who Merrill considered as “my greatest asset. Both the packaging and the content of my new brand had to be excellent because it was to be the third member of my family!”
As a tea trader, Merrill has always had very strong principles about how a business should be run and how we should all behave as responsible professionals. As a kind, thoughtful, generous, committed Christian, he is guided by even stronger ethics about how we should all behave as human beings. When asked about what drives him, he will repeat his guiding mantra, “I am an ordinary farmer learning to market our tea crop without middlemen so that I can retain in my country the earnings which are taken away by traders, leaving us poor. My earnings are shared with my workers and the wider community and reinvested to make tea a sustainable industry. I have made it my duty to extend a helping hand to others and the community. If we learn to care and share with others, we will spread happiness, not create envy. If we learn to share our wealth, our world will be a far happier place for all.”
That sharing of earnings is carried out through the MJF Charitable Foundation, incorporated in 2002 with the primary aim of alleviating poverty and of helping the underprivileged, the sick and the disabled.
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| Fernando at a school supported by MJF Charitable Foundation. |
A percentage of Dilmah’s profits goes directly to the Foundation and the message to customers is very simple – every time you buy a packet of Dilmah tea, you are helping to put money back into the community. From its inception, Dilmah had a policy of giving back. But it was the tragedy of the tsunami that struck the south west coast of Sri Lanka in 2004 that spurred the expansion of the Foundation’s work.
Since those dreadful days, The MJF Foundation has donated vast amounts of money to help refurbish fishing boats, build an ice factory to empower the fishermen and eliminate their reliance on scoundrel middlemen, and supply the local women with sewing machines and the necessary skills to hand process beautiful linens for use in local hotels and restaurants. During the past 10 years or so, the Foundation has built homes for orphans, the blind, abused women and other underprivileged groups; it has established schools, hospices, eye clinics, vocational training establishments and hospitals; it has sponsored the construction of roads and new housing and has set up a wide range of on-going environmental programs; and it has helped a long list of individuals and families throughout the island to set up a huge variety of sustainable businesses that now employ others in the community, empower more and more people, and inspire all those who come into contact with the various schemes.
The list of projects is endless, heartwarming and a shining example to all of us and we should all take to heart what Merrill says again and again: “We came into this world with nothing, we leave with nothing. The wealth some of us acquire is owed to the efforts and cooperation of many others around us. Let us, therefore, share that wealth, while we are still around, so that the goodwill and contentment created thereby, make our world a happier place for others as well.”
If more people followed Merrill Fernando’s guiding principle, the principle that lies at the very foundation of the Dilmah Tea Company, the world would most certainly be a better place.
