Idea 460 of 500. Cluster 24: Proof and trust, as a business
A code on every pack of Ceylon tea, cinnamon and spice sold abroad, scanned by the buyer's phone to prove it is genuine, sold to the exporters as a service
The mechanism, from the book
The one thing. A country where people do not expect the rules to hold cannot build anything else, and proof can be manufactured by private people, one published record at a time.
Every idea in cluster 24 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Ask three tea or cinnamon exporters whether their buyers abroad have found fake Ceylon products, and what that costs them. Build a simple system that prints a unique code for each pack and shows the pack's details when it is scanned. Run a trial on one exporter's next shipment. The proof is the exporter paying to use it on the following one.
- Who pays first
- An exporter of Ceylon tea or cinnamon whose name is being copied abroad, and who pays to protect the price.
- What leaves today
- Copies sold as Ceylon take the price the real product has earned; a checkable code keeps that price with the island.
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. SixThe Fridge by the Road
The fridge by the road: proof that the rules hold - Ch. FifteenThe Odds
13 of 101 countries made it, and what Singapore's prosecution cost
More from cluster 24
- 451A verified-review platform for Sri Lankan businesses where the reviewer is real and the review cannot be bought
- 452Escrow services for transactions between strangers, so that the money moves when the goods do
- 453Published price lists at the tourist sites and in the taxis, with a complaints line that answers
- 454A landlord and tenant rating service, since neither can currently check the other
- 455Contractor registries with completed jobs photographed and clients named
- 456Independent building inspection, so that a buyer abroad knows what was actually built
Idea 460 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.