Dehydrated fruit and vegetable contract manufacturing: LKR maths
By the Silk Foods Ceylon Editorial Team
Buyer’s snapshot
- Pumpkin traded at LKR 100 to 150 a kilo wholesale at the Dambulla Dedicated Economic Centre in the week of 17 to 23 July 2026, per HARTI. Dried to an 8 percent moisture spec, close to 11 kilos of it go into 1 finished kilo.
- That ratio, not the drying fee, sets the quote. Raw material alone runs about LKR 1,370 per kilo of dried pumpkin at those prices, before trim loss, energy, labour, or packaging.
- Sri Lanka exported USD 583.89 million of food and beverages in 2025, up 24.23 percent, with processed food exports up 40.4 percent, per the Sri Lanka Export Development Board.
- Silk Foods Ceylon (SFC) runs drying inside the co-processing layer of contract manufacturing. First-run MOQ on a powder SKU is 50 kg, with volume tiers at 500 kg, 1,000 kg, and 2,500 kg.
Pumpkin traded at LKR 100 to 150 a kilo wholesale at the Dambulla Dedicated Economic Centre in the week of 17 to 23 July 2026, according to the Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Research and Training Institute (HARTI). A brand owner pricing a dried pumpkin SKU off that number will be wrong by roughly a factor of eleven.
Drying removes water, and water is most of what the buyer paid for. The distance between a fresh price and the cost of a finished kilo is arithmetic, not margin. Every other line in a contract drying quote, the route, the moisture spec, the sulphite decision, the run size, is smaller than that one ratio, and each of them moves it.
Why a dried-vegetable quote never tracks the fresh price
Drying yield is fixed by moisture content, not by the dryer. A vegetable at 92 percent water dried to an 8 percent specification loses about 91 percent of its mass, so roughly 11.8 kilos of raw cabbage produce 1 kilo of finished product. USDA FoodData Central publishes the fresh figures. The rest is division.
The formula takes two inputs. Divide 100 minus the target moisture by 100 minus the fresh moisture, then invert it. Nothing about the equipment changes that answer. A better dryer changes throughput, energy cost, and colour retention, but the mass balance is settled the moment the crop is weighed in.
| Crop | Dambulla wholesale, LKR per kg | Fresh moisture | Kg fresh per kg dried at 8 percent | Raw material in 1 kg dried, LKR |
| Pumpkin | 100 to 150 | 91.6 percent | 11.0 | about 1,370 |
| Cabbage | 80 to 130 | 92.2 percent | 11.8 | about 1,240 |
| Carrot | 240 to 300 | 88.3 percent | 7.9 | about 2,120 |
| Beetroot | 360 to 420 | 87.6 percent | 7.4 | about 2,890 |
Wholesale prices are the Dambulla Dedicated Economic Centre range for week 29 of 2026, 17 to 23 July, per HARTI. Fresh moisture is USDA FoodData Central. The final column multiplies the midpoint price by the yield ratio and covers raw material only, with no trim loss, energy, labour, or packaging in it.
Trim loss then sits on top. Pumpkin arrives with skin and seed, and roughly a third of the delivered weight leaves as waste before a slice reaches a tray. Put a 30 percent trim on the pumpkin row and the raw-material figure moves from about LKR 1,370 to about LKR 1,960 a kilo. Carrot trims closer to 10 percent. Cabbage loses its core and its outer leaves. Each of those is a real number a brief should carry, and almost none of them appear in a first inquiry.
Fruit behaves the same way and lands higher. Pineapple ran LKR 450 to 590 a kilo at Dambulla in the same week, and at 86 percent moisture, a 15 percent finished spec, and roughly half the delivered weight lost to skin and core, a kilo of dried pineapple carries about LKR 6,300 of fruit before anything else is counted.
The wider first-run cost picture for a local brand is set out in contract manufacturing in Sri Lanka: the 2026 founder’s maths.
Tray or tunnel: which drying route fits the SKU?
The route is a brief decision, not a factory default. The FAO notes that tunnel, belt trough, fluidised bed and foam-mat drying are mainly used for vegetables, while tray and cabinet drying stays batch-shaped and suits smaller or more delicate fruit runs. Route choice sets batch size, changeover cost, and how tightly a moisture spec can be held.
| Route | How it runs | Best fit | What it does to the brief |
| Tray or cabinet | Batch. Product sits on stacked trays in a heated chamber for a fixed cycle | Smaller runs, fruit pieces, delicate or high-value material, mixed SKU lists | Changeover is cheap, so several SKUs can share a week. Cycle time, not an hourly rate, sets the day |
| Tunnel | Semi-continuous. Trolleys of trays travel through a heated tunnel against an air flow | Single-crop vegetable volume and long uninterrupted runs | Rewards one crop at a time. A short run wastes the warm-up and the changeover |
| Spray drying | Continuous, from a liquid feed | Purees, juices, and milks going to powder rather than to pieces | Only available if the finished SKU is a powder. Piece integrity is not on offer |
Silk Foods Ceylon runs drying inside the co-processing layer of contract manufacturing, the Washing, Sorting, Grading, Drying, Grinding block on the SFC brochure, with a separate spray drier for liquid feeds. Which of those a SKU touches depends on whether the finished product is a piece or a powder, and that is a question the brief has to answer before a quote can be built at all.
The spray-dry route and its specification are covered separately in private-label coconut milk powder spray-dry specs.
The moisture target for vegetables is not the fruit target
Dried vegetables and dried fruit sit at different specifications. FAO guidance puts dehydrated vegetables below 12 percent moisture, while dried fruit commonly finishes in a 15 to 20 percent band, because residual sugar binds water without feeding spoilage. The control underneath both numbers is water activity rather than moisture percentage.
The FAO puts the practical threshold plainly: some yeasts and moulds grow slowly at a water activity down to about 0.65. A dried product held below that line is shelf stable at ambient. Above it, the pack is a countdown.
In Sri Lanka the moisture number is only half a specification, because the product does not stay where it left the dryer. Ambient humidity through most of the year is high enough that dried pieces will re-absorb water through anything short of a real moisture barrier. A 6 percent product in a weakly sealed pouch is a 10 percent product by the time it reaches a shelf.
The barrier side of that problem is worked through in herbal tea shelf life in Sri Lanka: moisture barrier specs.
So a drying brief should state two numbers rather than one: the moisture at pack, and the moisture the SKU still has to meet at the end of its stated shelf life. The gap between them is a packaging decision, and it is far cheaper to make before the run than after the first complaint.
What does going sulphite-free actually cost?
Sulphur dioxide is used in dried fruit because it works. The FAO describes preservatives of that class as improving the colour and keeping qualities of the final product. Removing it costs colour first, shortens practical shelf life second, and usually forces a tighter moisture target, a better barrier, or both.
The legal position in Sri Lanka is more specific than most briefs assume. The Food (Additives - General) Regulations 2019, published in Gazette Extraordinary No. 2131/2 on 8 July 2019 under the Food Act No. 26 of 1980 and in operation from 1 January 2020, permit additives covered by the regulations in Schedule I, and for the technological classes in Schedule II they adopt the list and limits published in the General Standard for Food Additives of the Codex Alimentarius Commission. The ceiling for a sulphite in a dried-fruit SKU is therefore a Codex number, read through a Sri Lankan gazette.
Legal and saleable are different questions. Under Regulation (EU) No. 1169/2011, sulphites above 10 mg per kilo have to be declared on the label as an allergen, per the Food Safety Authority of Ireland. Ten milligrams sits far below any functional dose, so there is no quiet middle ground: a sulphited product declares, and a clean-label product uses none at all. For a local brand selling onto a health-positioned shelf, or one that expects to export later, that single declaration line usually settles the argument.
The pattern the R&D side of the Matale facility sees on dried-fruit briefs is consistent. A buyer arrives with a sulphite-free requirement and a colour reference photograph taken from a sulphited product. Those two things cannot both be delivered. Unsulphited pineapple browns, unsulphited banana browns faster, and the honest options are a blanch step, a citric or ascorbic dip, a lower drying temperature across a longer cycle, or a revised colour standard. It usually ends as the last one, after a two-week conversation that would have been a two-line answer in the original brief.
The category view of dried-fruit snack SKUs, cuts, and formats sits in contract manufacturing dehydrated fruit snack SKUs in Sri Lanka.
Where the LKR per kilo lands at volume
Volume moves the conversion cost, not the raw material. A first-run powder SKU at Silk Foods Ceylon carries a 50 kg MOQ, with volume tiers at 500 kg, 1,000 kg, and 2,500 kg. Raw material per kilo scales linearly with the yield ratio at every one of those tiers. What scales down is changeover, cleandown, QA, and the share of a fixed drying cycle each kilo has to carry.
| Run size | What changes | What does not |
| 50 kg, first run | Highest cost per kilo. A single cycle carries all of the setup, cleandown, and QA | Yield ratio, moisture spec, raw material cost per kilo |
| 500 kg | Setup spreads across several cycles, and single-crop scheduling becomes practical | The same three |
| 1,000 kg | Raw material can be contracted forward instead of bought at spot | The same three |
| 2,500 kg | Best conversion rate. Crop seasonality, not line time, becomes the constraint | The same three |
Two things follow from that shape. A buyer chasing a lower LKR per kilo by growing the order is only attacking the smaller half of the cost. The larger half, raw material, is attacked through crop choice, trim, and season, which are sourcing decisions taken months before a purchase order exists.
On timing, an existing spec runs 2 to 3 weeks from purchase order to dispatch at the Matale facility, and 6 to 10 weeks where formulation work comes first, since R&D adds 4 to 6 weeks at the front. Sample dispatch is 1 to 2 weeks on an existing spec and 2 to 4 weeks per iteration where a recipe is still being developed.
Where the maths favours buying dried material rather than drying it, the repack route is set out in co-packing imported dried fruit into Sri Lankan retail pouches.
Service snapshot: contract drying at Silk Foods Ceylon
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What does a contract dryer need before quoting?
Most drying inquiries arrive carrying a crop and a volume. Those two facts price nothing, because they leave the yield ratio, the route, and the specification all open. Eight lines close them.
Buyer's checklist: what to put in a contract drying brief
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A brief carrying those eight lines can be quoted in one pass. A brief carrying a crop and a volume takes three rounds, and the numbers move on every one of them.
The audit stack that sits behind a quote for a Sri Lankan retail SKU is explained in contract manufacturing certifications in Sri Lanka.
Frequently asked questions
Does Silk Foods Ceylon offer contract drying for vegetables and fruit?
Yes. Drying sits inside the co-processing layer of contract manufacturing at the Matale facility, alongside washing, sorting, grading, and grinding, with a separate spray drier for liquid feeds. First-run MOQ on a powder SKU is 50 kg, with volume tiers at 500 kg, 1,000 kg, and 2,500 kg, and the grinding line behind it runs 100 to 200 kg per hour.
How many kilos of fresh produce make 1 kilo of dried product?
It depends on the fresh moisture. Pumpkin at 91.6 percent water dried to an 8 percent spec needs about 11 kilos of fresh material for 1 finished kilo, and carrot at 88.3 percent needs about 7.9 kilos, using USDA FoodData Central moisture figures. Trim loss for skin, core, and seed sits on top of that.
Can a dried fruit SKU be made without sulphites in Sri Lanka?
Yes, and many local brands specify it. Sulphites are legal here, since the Food (Additives - General) Regulations 2019 adopt Codex limits for that class of additive, but under Regulation (EU) No. 1169/2011 anything above 10 mg per kilo declares as an allergen. Going sulphite-free costs colour retention and usually a tighter moisture target.
What moisture content does a dried vegetable need for a Sri Lankan shelf?
FAO guidance puts dehydrated vegetables below 12 percent, and 8 percent is a common working spec. The control that matters is water activity: the FAO notes that some yeasts and moulds still grow slowly down to about 0.65, so a shelf-stable product has to sit below that line and stay there through the pack.
How Silk Foods Ceylon can help
For local FMCG brands adding a dried fruit or dried vegetable SKU, Silk Foods Ceylon runs drying inside the co-processing layer of contract manufacturing at the Matale facility, with a grinding and sieving line behind it running 100 to 200 kg per hour where a dried product is taken to a spec mesh size. First-run MOQ on a powder SKU is 50 kg, with volume tiers at 500 kg, 1,000 kg, and 2,500 kg, and lead time runs 2 to 3 weeks from purchase order to dispatch on an existing spec. The facility is BRCGS- and FSSC 22000 V6-audited, with USDA Organic and EU Organic on relevant SKUs, plus SLSI clearance and Sri Lanka Food Act compliance on retail SKUs. The in-house R&D team settles the sulphite, colour, and moisture trade-offs before a spec locks.
A brief that states the finished volume in kilos, the moisture at pack, and the sulphite decision can be quoted in a single pass.
To brief a project and request a feasibility call, email b2b@esilkroute.com.lk or call +94 76 441 0389 / +94 76 918 5744.
Sources
Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Research and Training Institute (HARTI), Weekly Food Commodities Bulletin, Vol. 48, No. 29, 17 to 23 July 2026. harti.gov.lk (retrieved 21 August 2026).
Sri Lanka Export Development Board, Sri Lanka’s Export Performance Exceeded US$ 17.2 Billion in 2025. srilankabusiness.com (retrieved 21 August 2026).
Food (Additives - General) Regulations 2019, Gazette Extraordinary No. 2131/2 of 8 July 2019, made under the Food Act, No. 26 of 1980, Ministry of Health. health.gov.lk (retrieved 21 August 2026).
FAO, Fruit and vegetable processing, Chapter 5: General procedures for fruit and vegetable preservation. fao.org (retrieved 21 August 2026).
Food Safety Authority of Ireland, Sulphur Dioxide and Sulphites, on the 10 mg per kg declaration threshold under Regulation (EU) No. 1169/2011. fsai.ie (retrieved 21 August 2026).
USDA FoodData Central, water content per 100 g for raw pumpkin, cabbage, carrot, and beetroot. fdc.nal.usda.gov (retrieved 21 August 2026).
Written by the Silk Foods Ceylon Editorial Team. Silk Foods Ceylon (Pvt) Ltd. is a BRCGS- and FSSC 22000 V6-audited contract manufacturer in Matale, Sri Lanka, offering contract manufacturing, private labelling, co-packing, and in-house R&D for Sri Lankan brand owners, FMCG companies, hotel and restaurant groups, and distributors. To brief a project: b2b@esilkroute.com.lk, +94 76 441 0389, or +94 76 918 5744.