From rice or jute bag to fashion statement

It’s a long way where we meet many great people before we finally have a finished Rice & Carry product in our hands.
Let’s start with the rice bag at the market.
Rice and jute bags are disposable products in Sri Lanka. This means that after the rice from the sacks is sold, the sacks either end up on the garbage dump or, like so much other plastic waste, are simply incinerated at home. Fortunately, there are people who collect these sacks and then sell them from their bikes. This way, unnecessary garbage on the streets of Sri Lanka is avoided and the collectors can earn some extra money.
We are especially happy about these people, because we get our “raw material” from them.

The sacks are collected by our driver Thastakeer and then washed, dried and ironed by hand.
This is done by our two employees Vanitha and Sunithalalini with a mixture of water, coconut vinegar, baking powder and a little bit of aromatic oil. Since the waste water does not contain any chemicals, the banana and lime trees growing in our garden are happy. And so are we, of course, as we do not waste valuable resources in this way. 😉

After the washing process, the bags are hung in the sun to dry and then ironed. Before our seamstresses turn them into a wide variety of products, they are carefully checked once again by our employees for any holes or stains.

At the moment about 20 seamstresses work from home. Those of them, who live in the immediate vicinity of the manufactory, come to visit us once a week to deliver their products and take back all the materials for the new products. This is also a good opportunity to get tips from female colleagues, discuss the products with the quality controllers and exchange the latest news during the tea break.All those who live further away will get the ready washed bags including accessories like fabrics, zippers, etc. delivered to their homes. This is also done by our dear driver, who then picks up the finished products from our employees and brings them back to us at the manufactory.

After the sewing process, our quality inspectors Jeyapiratha, Dinuja and Niro check all products for small mistakes and defects. Every member of our team has a fixed task, so we avoid chaos in production and guarantee a smooth process.

As you can see, our manufacturing process involves many different people with different talents and skills. This is one of the things that sets us apart, because we want to give our employees the chance of a secure job and thus a regular income. With our manufactory, we are able to secure the income of many families in the long term – that makes us happy every day!😁