Hello
@fait, I'm still here! I wish that I was making more progress with the flash frozen kava, but right now I'm simply working on a stable supply of high quality dried whole roots.
I've been battling several factors:
-Right after sales started picking up, my import partner's supply became depleted. Since he also operates a kava bar, he needed to serve his customers first, so I agreed to wait until he could restock before we could begin selling online again.
-My partner is also becoming more and more busy, which makes it more necessary to focus his attention on his core business.
-Now that it's hurricane season, the supply is further stressed. Farmers are reluctant to uproot their kava because they many days of continuous sun to fully dry it. As a result, prices are now very high (up to $160 Fijian dollars/kg) for whole waka.
Here's the plan:
-We have relatives in Fiji who are going to ship a small quantity of kava (several hundred pounds) very soon. If the quality is good, I'm hoping that I will be able to sell about 50 pounds online every month or so. If this product is well-received then we should be able restock a few more times during the rainy season.
-After the rainy season ends in late April, we're planning to travel to Fiji and buy several tons of waka which will last for the rest of the year.
-To take some of the pressure off my partner, I'm going to invest in some new equipment to increase the rate at which we can pound the kava.
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I will say that living in a fully economically developed country like the US, we tend to expect a certain level of efficiency and business savvy. Oh mama, is it different in Fiji! There are far, far more opportunities to buy bad kava than good and the quality control is severely lacking. Trust is also a very troubling issue. It's definitely going to take a while to establish a stable supply and while that gets worked out, I'll probably only be able to sell for short periods.
I appreciate your patience. I'll definitely send out the alert when we're ready to sell again.
Dave