Idea 281 of 500. Cluster 14: Farm to shelf
Honey from the dry zone, single-origin, tested and branded
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.
Every idea in cluster 14 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Source honey directly from one dry-zone beekeeper and send a sample to a laboratory for a purity test. Label the rest with the village and the test result, and offer it to a delicatessen and a hotel gift shop. Ask what price they would put on it and whether they would reorder. A price offer and a first order are the proof that testing pays for itself.
- Who pays first
- A delicatessen or hotel gift shop whose customers distrust unlabelled honey and will pay more for a tested jar with a village name.
- What leaves today
- Wild honey is sold unlabelled at the roadside and mistrusted, so the price that tested, single-origin honey fetches 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. ElevenThe Mechanisms
Denmark's co-operative dairies and the binding contract that held them
More from cluster 14
- 271A farmers' co-operative dairy in the hill country selling cheese and yoghurt under its own brand
- 272Buffalo-milk mozzarella and ghee for the hotels and for export
- 273Fruit and vegetable drying: mango, pineapple, papaya, jackfruit and okra as premium snacks and soup mixes for Europe and the Gulf
- 274Frozen tropical fruit pulp for the smoothie chains of the world
- 275Heritage rice varieties grown under contract and sold at ten times the commodity price
- 276Organic certification services for smallholder groups, shared so the cost is bearable
Idea 281 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.