Starter Kit. Idea 493 of 500. Cluster 27
Fruit wines and vinegars from what rots in the glut, bottled under the district's name
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.
The first step
Collect the fruit of the district in the glut, when growers sell it cheapest or let it rot. Make a small batch of vinegar first, the simpler of the two, and ask the health officer and the standards body what the kitchen and the label need, and what licence a fruit wine needs before you make one. Sell the vinegar to a local shop and to guesthouses under the district's name. The proof is a repeat order.
- Who pays first
- A guesthouse, a shop or a restaurant that wants a vinegar or a wine made from the district's own fruit to sell to visitors and local customers.
- What leaves today
- Fruit rots in the glut and earns nothing; bottled under the district's name, it keeps all year and sells at a better price.
Ask first
- the area Medical Officer of Health. Ask what standard a kitchen making vinegar or wine for sale must meet.
- Sri Lanka Standards Institution. Ask what standard and label a bottled vinegar or fruit wine needs.
Check before you spend
Confirm the licence any fruit wine needs before it is made or sold, the kitchen's food safety standard, and the label on every bottle.
Find out these three numbers
- What will a shop pay for a bottle of vinegar?
- How much fruit does one batch need?
- How long must a batch stand before it is ready?
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.