Idea 221 of 500. Cluster 11: Cinnamon and the spice garden
Cinnamon quills in retail packs with the grade printed, since almost no consumer knows the grades exist
The mechanism, from the book
The imitation out-earns the original. Vietnam earns more from cassia than Sri Lanka does from true cinnamon, because the cassia arrives on the shelf as a product and the cinnamon arrives at the port as a bale.
Every idea in cluster 11 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Buy one kilo each of 3 cinnamon grades from a processor in the south-west, pack them in small clear bags with the grade and its meaning printed on the label, and put them side by side in a local shop that serves tourists. Offer the owner a share. The proof is which grade sells first and how many visitors ask what the grades mean.
- Who pays first
- A tourist or home cook abroad who already buys cinnamon every week and would pay more once the label tells them what they are buying.
- What leaves today
- True cinnamon is sold at the port as bales, and consumers abroad never learn that grades exist, so the finest quills fetch a commodity price.
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.
In the book
- Ch. FourThe Same Failure, Four Times
Why cassia out-earns true cinnamon - Ch. ElevenThe Mechanisms
The single desk that ends undercutting and funds brand and quality
More from cluster 11
- 222Cinnamon sticks as a branded gift, tied and boxed, sold at every airport in the world where we have a shop
- 223Cinnamon-leaf and bark oils bottled for the aromatherapy trade under a Sri Lankan name
- 224Cinnamon-infused honey, sugar and salt as a range
- 225A "true cinnamon" education campaign run by producers, aimed at bakers and chefs abroad
- 226Cinnamon farm stays in the south-west, where the peeling is the show
- 227Peeler training schools, since the skill is disappearing and it is the whole value
Idea 221 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.