Idea 288 of 500. Cluster 14: Farm to shelf
Tamarind, lime and ginger pastes for the restaurant trade abroad
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
Make three pastes in small jars, tamarind, lime and ginger, and test the shelf life by keeping samples for a month. Send them with a trade price to the chefs of five South Asian restaurants in London, and follow up by phone a week later. A chef who reorders, or tells you the pack size a kitchen needs, gives you the product specification.
- Who pays first
- A restaurant kitchen abroad that grinds its own pastes every day and would pay to save the labour if the taste holds.
- What leaves today
- Tamarind, lime and ginger leave raw or dried, and the ready-made paste that saves a kitchen hours is someone else's product.
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 288 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.