Idea 489 of 500. Cluster 27: The fruit nobody grades
The island's bananas sold by name, kolikuttu, seeni and ambul, in Colombo and in the Sri Lankan shops abroad, not as "banana"
The mechanism, from the book
Fruit the world wants, sold in a heap by the road. Grading, a name and a cold box make the heap an export and the season a reason to visit.
Every idea in cluster 27 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Buy kolikuttu, seeni and ambul bananas from growers you know, grade them, and pack each kind in bunches with its name on the label. Ask two supermarkets in Colombo and a Sri Lankan grocer abroad what they would pay for named, graded bananas. Supply one of them for a month. The proof is the shop reordering by name, and its customers asking for it.
- Who pays first
- A Sri Lankan grocer abroad, or a Colombo supermarket, whose customers know the kinds and want them by name.
- What leaves today
- Every kind is sold as banana at one price; a name on the bunch lets the best kinds earn what they are worth.
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
What a brand and an owned variety are worth, from the kiwifruit growers - Ch. TwoAn Island Nobody Has Counted
The island's resources, counted
More from cluster 27
- 486The Karuthakolomban mango, the finest the island grows, graded, packed and sold under its own name, from Jaffna and every district that grows it, to Colombo and the world
- 487A fruit-grading standard and the graders trained to it, so that Grade A from any district means the same thing to a buyer in Dubai
- 488Mangosteen and rambutan flown fresh in season to the Gulf and Singapore in graded boxes, not left to the roadside
- 490Avocado orchards in the hills for the breakfast tables of the Gulf, which now fly the fruit in from much further away
- 491Fruit-tree nurseries selling grafted saplings of the named varieties, with a guarantee that the tree is what the label says
- 492Pick-your-own orchards and fruit trails for visitors in the season, the way apple farms do it in England
Idea 489 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.