WHY NOT SRI LANKA? සිංහල

Starter Kit. Idea 256 of 500. Cluster 13

Crab and prawn from the lagoons as a branded chilled export, with the lagoon's name

Back to the idea

Written for this site as a starting point, not from the book. Rules and fees change: ask the bodies named below before you spend money.

The mechanism, from the book

An ocean eight times the size of the land, and a fishing fleet that sells its catch on the beach. The Maldives built a tourism industry on water Sri Lanka has more of.

The first step

Buy a few kilos of lagoon crab from the morning landing, chill it properly, and take it the same day to the purchasing managers of two city hotels with a label naming the lagoon it came from. Ask each whether they would buy weekly at a fixed price if the lagoon and the catch date were guaranteed. A standing weekly order is the first proof that the name carries a premium, before any export licence is needed.

Who pays first
A hotel purchasing manager who wants crab and prawn with a known origin and catch date, and will pay a fixed weekly price for it.
What leaves today
Lagoon crab and prawn leave anonymous in bulk, so the premium that a named origin earns goes to whoever repacks it under their own brand.

Ask first

  • Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources. Ask what a chilled seafood export needs in approvals and testing.
  • National Aquaculture Development Authority. Ask whether lagoon crab and prawn have any origin description already.

Check before you spend

Whether your chilling and packing meet the importer's food-safety rules, and whether the lagoon's name may be used on the label.

Find out these three numbers

  1. What do hotels pay per kilo for chilled lagoon crab?
  2. How many kilos land each morning at the lagoon?
  3. How long does the catch stay fresh on ice?

A comparison from the book

Ethiopia. Chapter Eleven

"Owning the name did not change who got the money."

The lagoon's name helps, but control the chilling, the shipping and the buyer too.

The test

Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?

WITH500BUSINESS IDEASTO STARTTOMORROW

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.