The Honest Greens journey began with spinach. According to Cooray’s retelling of the story, they went around the world learning about hydroponics and related fields. They then grew a small spinach plant in Tyagarajah’s cupboard. “That plant tasted better than any spinach plant we have ever tasted, so we knew there was something here, but we needed to make it financially feasible,” said Cooray.
Thus research and development continued for three-and-a-half years, a trial-and-error process that started with a small office space in Colombo. Once they had a better understanding of how the operation would function, Cooray, Advani, and Tyagarajah spent two-and-a-half years setting up the facility in Dankotuwa.
“We decided that we needed to help Sri Lanka bring a change in the agriculture sector. There is a lot of infrastructure development with a lot of hotels and new businesses coming up, but no one was investing in the agricultural sector,” explained Advani.
The project was self-funded by Cooray, Tyagarajah, and Advani, but they also received a grant from the World Bank under the agricultural sector modernization project category.
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