Cluster 27 of 28. Ideas 486 to 495
The fruit nobody grades
The mechanism
Fruit the world wants, sold in a heap by the road. Grading, a name and a cold box make the heap an export and the season a reason to visit.
The 10 ideas
- 486The Karuthakolomban mango, the finest the island grows, graded, packed and sold under its own name, from Jaffna and every district that grows it, to Colombo and the world
- 487A fruit-grading standard and the graders trained to it, so that Grade A from any district means the same thing to a buyer in Dubai
- 488Mangosteen and rambutan flown fresh in season to the Gulf and Singapore in graded boxes, not left to the roadside
- 489The island's bananas sold by name, kolikuttu, seeni and ambul, in Colombo and in the Sri Lankan shops abroad, not as "banana"
- 490Avocado orchards in the hills for the breakfast tables of the Gulf, which now fly the fruit in from much further away
- 491Fruit-tree nurseries selling grafted saplings of the named varieties, with a guarantee that the tree is what the label says
- 492Pick-your-own orchards and fruit trails for visitors in the season, the way apple farms do it in England
- 493Fruit wines and vinegars from what rots in the glut, bottled under the district's name
- 494Jackfruit-seed and breadfruit flour, gluten-free, for the bakeries of Europe
- 495A fruit festival in each district in its season, the way Spain sells its oranges and Japan its cherries: the mango days in Jaffna, the rambutan month in Malwana, the durian weeks on the Kandy road