Idea 146 of 500. Cluster 6: Food and drink as export, not just hospitality
Cocoa from the wet zone processed into bean-to-bar chocolate on the island
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
Find the cocoa farmers in the wet zone near you and ask what they sell beans for and to whom. Buy 10 kg, ferment and dry a batch properly, and make bars with a tabletop grinder. Give tasting squares to two hotel pastry chefs and a café owner and ask whether they would buy a bar made from one named farm, and at what price. That price decides it.
- Who pays first
- A hotel or café that wants chocolate made on the island from one named farm, to sell to its visitors.
- What leaves today
- Cocoa leaves as raw beans, and the grinding, refining and branding that multiply their value happen in the countries that buy them.
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 146 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.