Starter Kit. Idea 165 of 500. Cluster 7
A shared cold-chain service for small food producers, from village to port
The mechanism, from the book
The tiny business pathway. A rural woman with an exceptional product should not need photography, English copy, packaging design and a distributor before the world can find her.
The first step
Talk to 10 small producers of fish, fruit, curd or vegetables in one area and ask how much they lose each week because it spoils before it reaches a buyer. Price a refrigerated van run to the nearest port or city twice a week. If their losses are bigger than your price per load, ask three of them to commit to a month of runs.
- Who pays first
- A small fish or fruit producer who loses part of every harvest to heat before it reaches a buyer.
- What leaves today
- Produce that spoils on the way sells for nothing or for local prices; a cold chain lets it reach the port and the export market.
Ask first
- Department of Agriculture. Ask how much produce they see lost between farm and market.
- Sri Lanka Ports Authority. Ask how chilled goods are handled at the port.
Check before you spend
That vehicles and stores keep the right temperature, that food safety rules are met, and that each producer signs a supply contract.
Find out these three numbers
- How much produce spoils today between village and port?
- What does a refrigerated truck cost to run?
- How many producers would share the service?
A comparison from the book
Denmark. Chapter Eleven
"a co-operative without an enforceable contract is a committee. The contract is the mechanism."
A shared service works only when every member signs an enforceable contract.
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.