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What went wrongChira mill owners at the Fatulla wholesale market, in a Press Narayanganj 24 report

Chira at 40-42 taka a kilo, muri next door at 45-50, and the grocers stopped asking

At the Fatulla wholesale market chira moves at 40-42 taka a kg while muri fetches 45-50 wholesale and 50-70 retail. A maund of rice yields 28-30 kg of muri, and with demand shifting the chira mills are going quiet.

At the Fatulla wholesale market in Narayanganj the chira mills are losing their market while demand for muri, the product next door, rises. Chira was moving at 40-42 taka a kg wholesale against muri at 45-50 wholesale and 50-70 retail, and a maund of rice yields 28-30 kg of muri. One chira mill owner said grocery shops simply no longer ask for chira the way they used to; other traders in the same market described the demand moving across to muri. The plant is the same as before and so are the buyers — only what people want to buy has changed, and a mill built for one product does not turn easily to another. The report gives no figures for the mills' capital, the owners' income, or how many have closed.

Lessons

  1. 1.A mill built for one product becomes a trap rather than an asset when tastes move next door
  2. 2.Watch what your retail customers reorder, not what you can produce: the grocers stopped asking for chira long before the mills stopped making it

Published with the person's permission, without revealing who they are.

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