Starter Kit. Idea 144 of 500. Cluster 6
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.
The 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.
Ask first
- Department of Export Agriculture. Ask which vanilla growers they know and what grading support exists.
- Sri Lanka Export Development Board. Ask which buyers abroad they know for graded vanilla.
Check before you spend
What grading standard buyers use, that curing is done consistently, and what export papers the beans need.
Find out these three numbers
- What do buyers pay per kilo for top-grade vanilla?
- How many growers can supply beans each season?
- How long does curing take before sale?
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.