Idea 233 of 500. Cluster 11: Cinnamon and the spice garden
Pepper vines on every coconut estate as a second crop, with a buyer contracted in advance
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
Ask 3 spice buyers or exporters whether they would contract in advance for pepper grown on coconut estates, and at what price and volume. Take the best offer to 3 coconut estate owners and ask whether they would plant vines on a trial block with the buyer's contract in hand. The proof is a buyer's signed intent and an estate's yes.
- Who pays first
- A spice exporter who needs a reliable pepper supply and will commit to a price in advance to secure it.
- What leaves today
- Coconut estates grow one crop on land that could carry two, so income from the same trees and the same ground is never earned.
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
- 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 233 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.