Uva Cinnamon: Uva Cinnamon - Sri Lanka's Best Kept Secret

Aikya Agro and Shift Integrated Bring to Life the Untold Story of a Spice, Kept Secret for 5000 Years.

Shift Integrated packaging design draws inspiration from local legends, folklore, rural history, and traditional art and imagery to tell a singular product story.

Aikya Agro is a Sri Lankan agribusiness firm that was bringing to the international market a cinnamon product, cultivated and processed in the Uva Province, in an area called Haldummulla. Shift Integrated helped craft a brand narrative and a design language for the packaging, telling the hitherto untold story of Uva Cinnamon.

The Design Challenge:
Within the product of True Ceylon Cinnamon, Aikya Agro was introducing a special variant, a type of Ceylon Cinnamon cultivated in the central hill country of the country, in contrast to the Western and Southern coastal belts where cinnamon is normally cultivated. This was not an easy story to render as packaging design. The target market, abroad, is still unclear about the difference between True Ceylon Cinnamon and fake cassia cinnamon. This new product had to be positioned as True Ceylon Cinnamon while also emphasizing how it is a special, different, and of higher quality within Ceylon Cinnamon.
Without utilizing a factual format of claims and descriptors, the agency decided to utilise legend, folklore, rural history, and traditional art and imagery to describe this product story.

The Cinnamon Story – What is Known and Unknown:
Cinnamon is one of the ancient spices in the world. Sri Lanka is the native home of true cinnamon. Originally, cinnamon was produced in the wild in Sri Lanka's central hill country. Cinnamon's history begins around 2800 B.C.; it is mentioned in the Bible, burned in Roman funerals, and even utilised by the ancient Egyptians to embalm mummies.
During the 14th and 15th centuries, cinnamon was a highly valued spice in the West, mostly used for meat preservation and bacterial growth retardation. One of the main causes of the 15th-century global exploration was the search for cinnamon. At that point, just one location—Ceylon or Sri Lanka—was producing genuine cinnamon. Anyone in charge of the supply chain would have made enormous profits. The origin of cinnamon remained a mystery to the Western world during the Middle Ages.

A Spice Violently Exploited by Colonisers:
In the fifteenth century, Portuguese traders arrived in Ceylon, took control of the trade from Arabs, and enslaved the local population. They exercised brutal control over the cinnamon trade. The Portuguese were quickly driven out and the Dutch took up the monopoly on cinnamon. The Dutch made a significant effort to increase productivity by domesticating crops and extending their influence into areas under their authority. As a result of that endeavour, cinnamon plantations were relocated to the island's southern and western coastline regions. In 1815 the British took control of the island and cinnamon trade too moved to their hands.

Haldumulla – Cinnamon Protected and Safeguarded:
Haldummulla is a town in Uva Province in Sri Lanka. One of the native locations where a special cultivar of Ceylon Cinnamon is grown and harvested, as has been done for thousands of years. Farmers and villagers have tirelessly safeguarded the way of cultivating and harvesting, protecting the precious spice from colonial eyes and now, with organic certification are bringing it to the rest of the world – for the first time.

The Design Idea:
Through the packaging and posters, Shift Integrated was able to bring to life the authentic and almost mythical story of Ceylon Cinnamon from Uva, by drawing inspiration from Sri Lankan temple art, traditional architecture, and folklore surrounding the cultivation of Cinnamon in the central highlands.
The centuries-old steps of Cinnamon cultivation, harvesting, and processing, were adapted as illustrations on the six sides of the packaging. An opportunity for consumers to learn and appreciate the never-before-told story of how Uva Cinnamon comes to be. The gold colour of the illustrations – the colour gold represents Cinnamon's historical value, when it was worth more than gold. Illustration style was inspired by traditional Sri Lankan Temple arts and crafts. The hexagonal design of the packaging was inspired by the ancient royal architecture and royal artefacts of Sri Lanka, where it symbolized strength, stability, balance, and – influenced by the Six Perfections (Paramitas) in Buddhism.