Eden Thamel was a man with innovation and futuristic vision. He would see things some 20 or 30 years ahead perhaps, and work on his own vision to create things anew. Having started his career as a court clerk under a leading lawyer, young Eden learned to be a methodical man in his early twenties. Then he joined the government service and held many positions in many departments. While working as a government servant he did not want to waste his leisure time without making use of his innovative ideas. So Eden started a poultry farm in the mid 1970’s with his own design. In his farm feeding, cleaning, and managing everything looked different from all other farms in the neighborhood. However, as we look back from some forty-odd years later, it is evident that Eden knew what would a modern farm of our time look like. Such a bookworm he was, that he had a keen sense to read events and people too with his experience which supported his innovative thinking in return.

At the dawn of 1980, Eden was a father of two lovely kids and a man with more responsibility. During this time there was a voluntary retirement scheme on offer for the government servants who had completed 20 years of service. Eden saw this as a long- awaited opportunity to put all his innovative thinking into practice as best as he could and quitted his job. With VRS compensation in hand, he pondered what should be the best alternative for him with available resources and saw a yet untapped potential of a cashew business in his area. He was inspired by his friend Mr. Wijewansa who was a cashew wholesale businessman at that time.

It was a time that imported processed cashew was available in supermarkets while local produce was just sold at pavements and small kiosks with no value addition. Having examined the situation, Eden’s first step was to construct his basic food processing factory in his home garden, of course according to his own design. He purchased a peeler and some basic machinery that was necessary to his operation which was heavily relied on manual labour. His idea was to make a value added cashew pack of international standard to compete with imported cashew packets in leading supermarkets in the country. His wife, Mrs.Thamel (Suneetha Perera), was always supportive to his business venture, although typical housewives do not encourage men to leave government jobs. Eden wanted to create an everlasting brand name for his product. Joseph Nasarenu who was one of his relatives and a close friend more than that, came up with a good suggestion- ‘Rancrisp’. As ‘Ran’ is a synonym to Gold in Sinhala, ‘Rancrisp’ would translate in to a ‘golden –crisp’ which would be a long lasting brand name in contrast to product names connected with people’s names of that era, thought Eden. On 16th June 1981, with a heart filled up in good hopes for a better future , Eden loaded his scooter with the first batch of his production and rode towards Tony Rasahala in JaEla in the morning to do his first sale. To his great luck, Mr Tissa Fernando, the manager, who was keeping the sweet shop in international standard, was also there.