Starter Kit. Idea 295 of 500. Cluster 14
Home gardens turned into a supply chain for one hotel, with a contract and a price
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
Get the weekly buying list from one hotel's head chef: vegetables, herbs and fruit, with quantities and prices. Then walk the home gardens of the nearest village and find which households could supply which items on that list. Bring the chef a first delivery and propose a contract at a fixed price. A signed contract, even for three items, is the proof.
- Who pays first
- A hotel head chef who wants local produce on the menu and will pay a fixed price for reliable weekly supply from named gardens.
- What leaves today
- Home gardens grow more than families eat and the surplus goes to waste, while the nearest hotel buys the same produce through middlemen.
Ask first
- Department of Agriculture. Ask whether they can advise home gardeners on growing to a hotel's standard.
- the area Medical Officer of Health. Ask what hygiene a hotel kitchen will expect from home-garden produce.
Check before you spend
Whether the hotel signs a contract with a price and weekly quantity, and what quality and cleanliness checks it applies on delivery.
Find out these three numbers
- What does the hotel buy each week, and at what price?
- How many home gardens are near enough to supply it?
- How much can each garden grow reliably?
A comparison from the book
Denmark. Chapter Eleven
"Members signed binding contracts, usually for about 10 years"
A contract with a fixed price turns scattered home gardens into one reliable supplier.
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.