Idea 144 of 500. Cluster 6: Food and drink as export, not just hospitality
Vanilla, since it grows here, cured and graded to the Madagascar standard
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
Track down the vanilla growers in your area and buy a small crop of green pods. Cure one batch carefully over the weeks it needs, grade the beans by length and moisture, and pack them in tubes. Send samples to two hotel pastry chefs and one spice dealer abroad, and ask what they would pay per bean compared with what they buy now. Their price is the verdict.
- Who pays first
- A pastry chef or spice dealer who wants vanilla graded to a known standard, with the island named as its origin.
- What leaves today
- Vanilla grown here is often sold green or poorly cured, so its value is lost before it ever reaches a buyer who pays for grade.
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 144 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.