WHY NOT SRI LANKA? සිංහල

Starter Kit. Idea 218 of 500. Cluster 10

Tea-house franchising abroad: one format, Sri Lankan-owned, in the cities where Sri Lankans abroad live

Back to the idea

Written for this site as a starting point, not from the book. Rules and fees change: ask the bodies named below before you spend money.

The mechanism, from the book

The Colombo auction sells tea by the lot to a buyer who blends it under his own name. Every step after the auction is where the money is, and every step can be done here by somebody who is not a plantation company.

The first step

Choose one city abroad you know well and spend a weekend running a tea stall at a Sri Lankan community event there, with 5 estate teas and a short menu of snacks. Record what sells, the average spend and how many people ask where the shop is. The proof is a weekend's takings and a list of people who want to know when it opens.

Who pays first
A Sri Lankan family abroad who wants a place to take friends for proper tea and short eats, and currently has nowhere to go.
What leaves today
Tea houses abroad sell Ceylon tea under other nations' formats and names, so the café margin and the brand of the island's own drink are both lost.

Ask first

  • Sri Lanka Export Development Board. Ask which cities abroad already import the most Ceylon tea for cafés.
  • Sri Lanka Tea Board. Ask what a tea house abroad needs to use the Ceylon logo.

Check before you spend

Whether the Ceylon name and logo may be used on a shop abroad, and what food and trading licences the host city requires.

Find out these three numbers

  1. What does a cup of good tea sell for in your chosen city?
  2. How many Sri Lankans abroad live near the first site?
  3. What does a small café site rent for there?

A comparison from the book

Ethiopia. Chapter Eleven

"The money is in what Ethiopia did not control: the roasting, the shipping, the shops, the customer."

Owning the shop abroad means owning the customer, which is where the tea money is.

The test

Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?

WITH500BUSINESS IDEASTO STARTTOMORROW

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.