Idea 178 of 500. Cluster 8: The coconut, which deserves its own list
King coconut as a named origin product, the way Alphonso is a named mango
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.
Every idea in cluster 8 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Write a one-page description of what makes king coconut different from green coconut: colour, taste and where it grows. Photograph the nut and send the page to three fruit importers in Europe or the Gulf, asking whether their customers would pay more for a named variety, and in what form, whole nuts, water or both. Their answers decide the product.
- Who pays first
- A fruit importer abroad whose shoppers already pay extra for named varieties of tropical fruit.
- What leaves today
- King coconut is sold abroad, if at all, as just another coconut, so the island earns nothing from what sets it apart.
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.
What the book adds
One nut, 15 businesses, and the only reason the island exports most of it raw is that nobody built the processing, the packaging or the brand.
In the book
- Ch. TwoAn Island Nobody Has Counted
Rubber and coconut on the island's lower slopes and coast - Ch. SixteenThe Bridge
Nestlé Lanka's coconut milk powder, made at Kurunegala for the world
More from cluster 8
- 176Coconut water, bottled and branded rather than sold as bulk concentrate
- 177Coconut water jelly and other set desserts, a product nobody yet associates with Sri Lanka
- 179Virgin coconut oil, cold-pressed, certified, in consumer packs
- 180Coconut milk and cream in retail formats rather than industrial drums
- 181Coconut flour and desiccated coconut for the gluten-free and baking markets
- 182Coconut sugar, treacle and jaggery from the flower sap
Idea 178 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.