Starter Kit. Idea 228 of 500. Cluster 11
Cardamom, cloves and nutmeg from the Kandy hills as single-origin retail products
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
Buy small lots of cardamom, cloves and nutmeg from 3 growers in the Kandy hills, pack them in labelled pouches with the grower's village named, and send samples to 5 speciality spice shops abroad. Ask whether they would list a single-origin Kandy range and at what price. The proof is one listing and a price per kilo.
- Who pays first
- A speciality spice shop abroad that sells single-origin pepper and chilli and wants spices with a named hill origin its rivals cannot match.
- What leaves today
- The hills' cardamom, cloves and nutmeg leave in mixed sacks, so the origin that could earn a premium is lost at the first sale.
Ask first
- Department of Export Agriculture. Ask which growers in the Kandy hills are registered for spice exports.
- Sri Lanka Standards Institution. Ask which standard applies to whole spices sold in retail pouches.
Check before you spend
Whether your packs meet the importing country's limits on moisture and residues, and how a testing laboratory would certify them.
Find out these three numbers
- What does a pouch of single-origin cardamom sell for abroad?
- What do growers get per kilo at the gate today?
- Which spice shops abroad would stock a named village?
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.