Billing for your organic and local produce shop in Meghalaya
Lakadong turmeric, wild honey and hill spices, each on its own line and in its own jar size.
Turmeric from Jaintia and fields in Ri Bhoi: where an organic shelf starts
Organic produce comes from specific places, and these are two districts where the farming is.
- In West Jaintia Hills about 70% of people depend on agriculture. Potato, ginger, garlic and turmeric are key cash crops, and the district is home to Lakadong turmeric.
- In Ri Bhoi's Umling block the main occupation is cultivation, and a shop in the district can buy straight from those who grow.
Lakadong on its own line, the honey tin and its jars, a visitor who orders again
Two growers' turmeric, ground to look the same
Two growers bring the root, and once it is ground into powder the two look the same, smell the same and sit in the same jar. Only the grower's word tells them apart, and a word fades by the next season. A visitor who asks a second time for the same jar needs the lot found for her.
A short count of jars, and what it means
Write the collector's tin on his page when it comes, with its kilos and the day. Fill the jars and enter them as stock. A short count of jars a week later means one of two things: you poured less than you thought, or you sold more. The week's sales show which, before the collector comes with the next tin and before the shelf runs bare.
The card in the bag, and the parcel in the post
A card with your online shop link goes into every bag. The visitor opens it weeks later, picks the turmeric and the honey, and the order arrives on your phone. You pack the parcel and post it. One trip to the hills becomes a regular customer, and the same card carries the shop's name to the next visitor.
Tools for a shelf of turmeric and honey, and credit to a hill café
Low stock warnings
A warning for the honey and the Lakadong powder when they fall to a few jars, in time to write to the collectors. The collectors are told early, and the shelf is not bare in the weeks the visitors come.
Online orders
Honey jars and turmeric packed for the post from an order on your own online page. The big and small jars of honey are separate items, so the order names which sizes go in the parcel.
Sell to other businesses
The hill café buys its honey and turmeric on credit, and its jars sit on a page of their own, apart from the shelf buyers, so the jars for the café's tables are never counted with the jars sold over the counter.
When every jar says turmeric, a tin of honey becomes many jars, and visitors go home
Raw root from two growers, one powder at the end of the afternoon
Visitors ask for Lakadong by name, and the root comes in from different growers. You grind it at the shop, and the powder from two growers' roots looks the same in the jar. The grower's word is all that says which valley a root came from, and the shop owner is the only guarantee once it is powder.
The honey tin is poured into jars, and the count goes with it
The collectors bring wild honey in a big tin. You fill small jars and bigger jars from it as customers come, and the tin gets lighter without anyone writing it down. After a week you can see the tin is nearly empty but not how many jars of each size left the shop. The next tin is asked for by eye, and sometimes the collector has none ready.
The visitor goes home and still wants more
A visitor buys a jar of honey and a bag of turmeric, goes back to a city far away and finds that the family finishes it in a month. There is no way to ask you for more except by walking back into the shop, and you have no list of who bought what. A season of such sales goes by without a single second order. A hill road is a long way to come back for a bag of turmeric.
A farmers' group whose stalls and online shop share one stock
Questions Meghalaya organic and local produce shops ask
The honey collector has no tin ready when I ask for the next one. How do I plan the jars?
The count of jars shows how many of each size are left, so you ask him for the next tin before the last jar goes. Write the tin's kilos on his page when it arrives, so what he brought and what you sold agree.
I grind turmeric root into powder at the shop. Can the root and the powder be two items?
Yes. Root and powder are two items, each with its own rate and its own count, so a sale of powder never takes a count off the root.
Can I see how many jars of Lakadong I sold in the visitor months?
Yes. The daily reports keep every day's sales by item, so you read the Lakadong line for the weeks that visitors came. The report shows the weeks that visitors came as a bump you can plan for.
Three turmerics and a state organic mission
Meghalaya grows three turmeric varieties, and Lakadong has the greatest demand, with 7.4 per cent curcumin content (reported in 2022).
The State Organic Mission 2028 aims to bring one lakh hectares of Meghalaya under certified organic cultivation, and the state promotes the Meghalaya Collectives Organic brand for certified produce.