Starter Kit. Idea 273 of 500. Cluster 14
Vegetable drying: okra, jackfruit and gotukola as soup mixes and curry bases for Europe and the Gulf
The mechanism, from the book
The smallholder sells raw to a collector at the gate and the collector sells to a packer who puts his own name on it. Denmark's farmers got rich the day they owned the creamery.
The first step
Dry small batches of okra, jackfruit and gotukola in a simple solar or electric dryer, and mix them with spices into 2 soup mixes and 2 curry bases, each in a sealed pouch with cooking instructions. Cook each one yourself after 4 weeks on the shelf to check it keeps. Then send samples with a price per carton to 3 importers or Sri Lankan grocers in Europe and the Gulf and ask what they would change. One sample order is the proof.
- Who pays first
- A Sri Lankan grocer or food importer in Europe or the Gulf whose customers want a curry or a soup from home without hunting for the fresh vegetables.
- What leaves today
- Vegetables rot in the glut season or sell raw at the gate, when dried and mixed they travel and sell under the island's own name.
Ask first
- Sri Lanka Standards Institution. Ask which standard applies to dried vegetables and soup mixes sold in sealed packs.
- Sri Lanka Export Development Board. Ask which buyers in Europe and the Gulf want dried vegetables and curry bases.
Check before you spend
Whether your drying room has food approval, and what moisture, residue and labelling rules the buyer's country sets for dried vegetables.
Find out these three numbers
- What do importers abroad pay per kilo of dried soup mix?
- How much fresh okra or jackfruit makes a kilo of dried?
- What does the dryer cost to run per batch?
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.