Idea 230 of 500. Cluster 11: Cinnamon and the spice garden
Curry-powder blends roasted and ground here, with the district recipe named on the tin
The mechanism, from the book
The imitation out-earns the original. Vietnam earns more from cassia than Sri Lanka does from true cinnamon by selling several times the weight, while the true cinnamon, worth far more a kilo, still arrives at the port as a bale.
Every idea in cluster 11 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Roast and grind 3 curry-powder blends from 3 districts' family recipes, with the recipe's district written on each label. Sell them at a weekend market, then send 20 tins to Sri Lankan friends abroad and ask whether they would buy monthly. The proof is repeat orders and which district's blend people come back for.
- Who pays first
- A Sri Lankan home cook abroad who cannot find curry powder that tastes like home and would pay for one tied to a named district.
- What leaves today
- Curry powder sold abroad is often ground and blended by foreign packers, so the island exports the raw spice and loses the recipe's value.
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.
There's a song about this idea
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
- 221Cinnamon quills in retail packs with the grade printed, since almost no consumer knows the grades exist
- 222Cinnamon sticks as a branded gift, tied and boxed, sold in every airport shop in the world that will stock them
- 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, a week on a working smallholding through the harvest and the drying
Idea 230 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.