Idea 127 of 500. Cluster 6: Food and drink as export, not just hospitality
Premium chilli sauces, chutneys and preserves
The mechanism, from the book
Dilmah says it earns over 3 times the national average price for tea, because it does its own blending, branding and packing. The proof has been sitting inside the industry all along.
Every idea in cluster 6 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Make 3 recipes you are proud of, bottle 30 jars of each with a clear label and a best-before date, and keep a few back to check they hold. Sell them at a weekend market and to a guesthouse shop, and ask a Sri Lankan grocer abroad what shelf price they would put on them. The recipe that sells, and the price the grocer names, tell you what to scale.
- Who pays first
- A visitor who tasted the chutney at dinner and wants a jar to take home, then orders again from abroad.
- What leaves today
- Chillies and fruit are sold raw at market prices, while the jar, which travels and carries a name, is made by somebody else.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. ElevenThe Mechanisms
What a brand and an owned variety are worth, from the kiwifruit growers - Ch. TwoAn Island Nobody Has Counted
The island's spices: pepper, cardamom, cloves and nutmeg
More from cluster 6
Idea 127 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.