Starter Kit. Idea 149 of 500. Cluster 6
Buffalo curd and treacle sold as a chilled dessert in the Gulf supermarkets
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
Talk to a curd maker you trust about setting their curd in sealed cups with the treacle in a separate lid, then test how long it keeps chilled. Ask Sri Lankans working in the Gulf, through a community group, which supermarkets they shop in and whether they would buy it. Take those names and approach the chilled-dessert buyer at one of them with a photo and a price.
- Who pays first
- A Gulf supermarket serving South Asian shoppers, whose Sri Lankan customers ask for curd and treacle by name.
- What leaves today
- Curd and treacle are sold at the roadside at home, so a dessert travellers already love earns nothing beyond the island.
Ask first
- the area Medical Officer of Health. Ask what hygiene standard a curd-making kitchen must meet.
- Sri Lanka Customs. Ask what papers chilled dairy needs to leave the country.
Check before you spend
That the curd is made hygienically, that the cold chain holds to the Gulf, and what the buyer country requires for dairy imports.
Find out these three numbers
- What do Gulf supermarkets pay for a chilled dessert pot?
- How long does the curd keep chilled?
- How much curd can makers supply each week?
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.