Starter Kit. Idea 222 of 500. Cluster 11
Cinnamon sticks as a branded gift, tied and boxed, sold at every airport in the world where we have a shop
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.
The first step
Make 20 gift bundles by hand: quills tied with a ribbon, boxed, with a card on true cinnamon. Take them to the gift shop managers at 3 hotels and one airport shop and ask whether they would stock them and at what price. The proof is one purchase order and the price they set on the shelf.
- Who pays first
- A hotel or airport gift shop that needs a light, authentic gift for departing visitors and wants something other than tea on the shelf.
- What leaves today
- Cinnamon leaves the island as a bale and comes back abroad as a gift someone else has boxed, with the margin added in their country.
Ask first
- Department of Export Agriculture. Ask which cinnamon grade suits a gift box, and how to describe it truthfully.
- Sri Lanka Customs. Ask what export paperwork small consignments of gift boxes need.
Check before you spend
Whether the airport shop's buyer needs food-safety certificates and a barcode, and what the destination countries ask of spice gifts.
Find out these three numbers
- What does an airport shop pay per gift box, and sell it for?
- How many boxes a month would one shop take?
- What does the box, ribbon and card cost per unit?
A comparison from the book
Sigiriya. Chapter Five
"And there is nothing to buy that is from there."
A boxed gift of true cinnamon is something the visitor can buy that is truly from here.
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.