Starter Kit. Idea 177 of 500. Cluster 8
Coconut water jelly and other set desserts, a product nobody yet associates with Sri Lanka
The mechanism, from the book
The whole-nut principle. Sri Lanka's coconut exports are growing, which makes this the one chain already moving. Almost every part of the nut has a market and most of them leave the island unprocessed.
The first step
Set coconut water into jelly in small cups, try 3 versions with pieces of soft coconut flesh, and test how long they keep chilled. Sell them from a cool box at a café or beach stall for a week and record which one visitors buy twice. Then ask a supermarket's chilled-dessert buyer whether they would stock the favourite. A trial order starts it.
- Who pays first
- A visitor on a hot day who wants something cool and local, and a café that wants a dessert nobody else sells.
- What leaves today
- Coconut water leaves cheap and raw; a set dessert turns the same water into a finished product with the island's name on it.
Ask first
- the area Medical Officer of Health. Ask what a home kitchen or small unit needs before selling chilled desserts.
- Sri Lanka Standards Institution. Ask which food standard applies to a set dessert sold in sealed cups.
Check before you spend
Whether you need food-premises approval to make chilled desserts for sale, and how long the cups keep safely in a shop fridge.
Find out these three numbers
- What does a café pay today for a single chilled dessert?
- How long does the jelly keep before the texture changes?
- What does one cup cost to make, including the cup and lid?
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.