Starter Kit. Idea 178 of 500. Cluster 8
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.
The 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.
Ask first
- Coconut Development Authority. Ask whether any grading or origin description for king coconut already exists.
- Sri Lanka Export Development Board. Ask which fruit importers abroad have asked for king coconut recently.
Check before you spend
Whether king coconut can be shipped fresh to your chosen market, and what plant-health certificate the importing country asks for.
Find out these three numbers
- What does a fruit importer abroad pay for one fresh king coconut?
- How many nuts a week could your growers supply in the dry months?
- How many days does a king coconut stay drinkable after picking?
A comparison from the book
Ethiopia. Chapter Eleven
"Owning the name did not change who got the money."
A named origin only pays if you also control the shipping and the customer.
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.