Starter Kit. Idea 435 of 500. Cluster 22
A packaging-materials supply chain at the district level: boxes, tape, labels, ice
The mechanism, from the book
The village cannot get a box to the container port. The gap is small firms, not big ones.
The first step
Call on the small producers in one district town and ask where they buy their cartons, tape, labels and ice, how far they travel and how often they run out. Get prices from a wholesaler for the same items in bulk, then offer local delivery against a weekly order. The proof is a first round of weekly orders from producers who say they would switch.
- Who pays first
- A small food or spice producer who travels to the city for cartons and labels, and would pay a little more to have them delivered weekly.
- What leaves today
- Goods leave unpacked and unbranded when packaging is hard to get; a district supply chain is the step that lets products leave finished.
Ask first
- Sri Lanka Standards Institution. Ask whether food packaging and labels for export must meet a standard they set.
- Sri Lanka Export Development Board. Ask which small exporters in the district buy cartons and labels in small lots.
Check before you spend
Confirm that the boxes and labels you stock suit food and export, that the ice is made with clean water, and that your store meets council rules.
Find out these three numbers
- What do producers pay now for cartons, tape and labels?
- How often do they run out, and what does that cost them?
- What price would a wholesaler give you for a bulk order?
A comparison from the book
The four rules. Appendix
"product in poor packaging with no story attached."
A good product fails in a poor box. Make the right box easy to buy in the district.
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.