Idea 495 of 500. Cluster 27: The fruit nobody grades
A fruit festival in each district in its season, the way Spain sells its oranges and Japan its cherries: the mango days in Jaffna, the rambutan month in Malwana, the durian weeks on the Kandy road
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
Choose one district and its fruit season, and ask the growers, the temple or church, the school and the local council whether they would hold a fruit day together. Plan stalls, tastings, a grading contest and a walk through the orchards. Tell the hotels and guesthouses in the region the date early. The proof is visitors who came for the festival and stayed the night.
- Who pays first
- Visitors and Colombo families who will travel for a day of the season's fruit, and the growers who sell to them.
- What leaves today
- Each district's fruit leaves in heaps at the lowest price of its season; a festival brings buyers to the farm and fills the rooms.
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
- 489The island's bananas sold by name, kolikuttu, seeni and ambul, in Colombo and in the Sri Lankan shops abroad, not as "banana"
- 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
Idea 495 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.