The silence lasted longer than I had expected. Chloe, watching everyone’s reactions, sipped at the Insignia her father had opened, and I also waited without a word. Uncle Frederick stared hard at my face, then soon shifted his gaze to the almond samples on the dining table. Aunt Amelia still looked uneasy, and Brandon sat frozen with his mouth open, caught off guard by the unfamiliar word “factory.”
“A processing plant...”
Frederick, who had farmed his entire life, looked as though he had fallen into serious contemplation. Of course, it was something that required deep consideration. It wasn’t a matter of spending a few pennies, and owning and operating a full-fledged secondary processing plant was on an entirely different level from farming.
Even so, the reason he couldn’t easily say no was probably because of me. The almond farm’s results hadn’t been good, but last year had been because of a weather disaster, and this year because of the price crash. In other words, they had simply been terribly unlucky.
In the case of the cherry farm, thanks to me, their income had increased severalfold, and with a separate, independent brand called Harris Farm, they were posting considerable results not only domestically but also in exports. Looking at the whole picture, they were earning an enormous amount because of me. The Shingo pears went without saying.
Up to this point, there was the fact that their income had risen thanks to my advice, so they couldn’t ignore it. But the bigger reason was probably that I was the very person who had successfully led secondary processing myself. There was no way he didn’t know how much I earned in a year. It would be a lie to say he wasn’t tempted.
“Then what kind of processing are you thinking of?”
Frederick finally opened his mouth. The fact that he had asked that question meant he had essentially made up half his mind, so Amelia’s expression stiffened. Chloe held her hand as if to tell her not to worry, and only then did she seem a little reassured.
“I was thinking almond milk might be good.”
“Almond milk?”
I pulled over a notepad and pen lying beside the dining table. Then I drew a large circle on the notepad.
“Almonds are about fifty percent fat by weight and twenty percent protein. The key point here is that most of that fat is unsaturated fatty acids. If you mix that with water and emulsify it, you can create a structure almost identical to milk.”
“Emulsify? Oil and water don’t mix.”
Brandon asked with a frown. I tapped the almond drawing with the tip of my pen.
“That’s where the technology comes in. You have to grind the almonds extremely finely, then pass them through a machine called a high-pressure homogenizer. Then the fat particles in the almonds are broken down into tiny pieces and settle stably among the water molecules. That is the true identity of the almond milk we drink. The nutty flavor and smooth texture you feel in your mouth are, in a sense, the scientific result created by those microscopic particles rolling over your tongue.”
On one side of the notepad, I began writing down a price comparison chart.
“Now, shall we calculate? Let’s say the current price of raw almonds is $1.40 per pound. If you sell them as they are, it ends at $1.40. But if you process them into milk, the story changes. Based on the standard recipe for almond milk, one kilogram of almonds can produce about fifteen to twenty liters of
almond milk. It’s magic that makes water more expensive than almonds.”
In truth, even that was a conservative figure on my part. The almond content of ordinary almond milk sold on the market was only around two to three percent. In the end, if you made milk with a two percent almond content, one kilogram of almonds could produce as much as fifty liters. What I had presented to Frederick was the example of premium almond milk with an almond content of five to seven percent.
“Do you know how much almond milk sells for at the supermarket right now?”
Chloe’s family looked at one another, searching for someone who might have the answer, but unfortunately, it seemed no one among them drank almond milk. Chloe immediately picked up her phone.
“I’ll ask. I have a friend who likes drinking almond milk.”
Chloe called right away and soon came back with the answer.
“My friend says it’s $3.40 for a half gallon—about 1.89 liters—at Walmart.”
Everyone’s gaze returned to me. I began calculating on the notepad again.
“A half gallon is $3.40, so if we make fifteen liters of milk from one kilogram of almonds, we can expect roughly twenty-seven dollars in revenue. Considering that one kilogram of almonds is now less than a dollar...”
Taking into account that the current market price had fallen to $1.40 per pound, that meant revenue would jump by more than thirty times at the very least. Of course, since almond prices had collapsed this year, such a profit rate would be difficult to expect in normal years.
“Oh my...”
Even Amelia, who had been the most negative, blinked in surprise, and Brandon also swallowed hard.
Uncle Frederick narrowed his eyes and looked over the numbers I had written. To him, a farmer through and through, the idea that output value could rise more than fivefold compared to raw cost was a temptation more powerful than magic.
“Of course, equipment costs and marketing expenses will be involved. But processed foods aren’t at the mercy of market prices like raw commodities. We can decide the price ourselves. Uncle, right now, twenty-five percent of Americans can’t drink
milk because of lactose intolerance. And there are plenty of people who dislike soy milk because it tastes beany. If we put Frederick Farm’s ‘Single Estate Almond Milk’ in front of them, what kind of reaction do you think we’ll get?”
Uncle Frederick glared at the notepad for a long while, then looked back at me.
“It sounds easy when you say it...”
“That’s true. Equipment costs and marketing expenses are an oversimplification of business. When you think about hiring staff, improving proficiency with the equipment, coming up with proper packaging, and spending a considerable amount on promotion, it’s hard to conclude that there will be profit just by punching numbers into a calculator.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“That’s why every choice is yours to make, Uncle. As for me... I just want to tell you that this is an opportunity that would be difficult to let slip by.”
Frederick sank back into thought. But the atmosphere was strange. Until a short while ago, Amelia had been looking at her husband with a negative expression, anxious that he might give a positive answer. Now, while she was still worried, she was watching him with eyes that held a faint trace of expectation.
Brandon needed no explanation; he was clutching his wineglass with an expression that seemed to be waiting for an “okay” at any moment.
In the end, after thinking for some time, Frederick let out a sigh.
“Hoo... You always make me make difficult decisions. And it’s true that your answers always end up sounding right, and we’ve actually seen a lot of profit. If anyone else had said this, I would have said no without thinking twice.”
“That would be understandable.”
“But once again, your proposal makes my heart pound. I simply can’t refuse it.”
At those words, Chloe spoke as if she had been waiting.
“We have quite a bit of spare capital from the cherry farm. I can lend it to you, so let’s use that to buy the factory. If it’s not enough, we can get a loan.”
“That won’t be enough. And right now, because of the Lehman crisis, loans aren’t easy to get, and the interest rates are enormous.”
He immediately turned to me with a serious look and made a proposal.
“We’re already business partners through the cherry farm, aren’t we? How about we collaborate on this almond production plant too?”
“With me?”
“Yes. If you invest, I’ll feel reassured, and you can also make a great deal of money from the almond profits. Let’s split the shares fifty-fifty.”
In a way, it was a smart proposal for hedging risk. Though his profits would be smaller later, if he received investment from me and reduced the risk of the initial capital, the burden would certainly be much lighter. On top of that, the fact that someone with capital like me was investing would itself serve as proof that I had confidence in the business.
Of course, it wasn’t bad for me either. With this year’s wine releases lined up one after another, money was piling up in the Redwood account again anyway. And since someone running a company needs to be given at least a little more equity to feel motivated to grow it, I didn’t think a forty percent share was too small.
“You’ll be doing most of the work, Uncle, so half seems excessive. Let’s do six-four. I think that would be better.”
“That’s even better for us. Hahaha! Come on, let’s have a drink.”
Perhaps relieved that he could start a new business to overcome this crisis without putting in a single penny of my money right away, Uncle Frederick’s expression brightened noticeably.
---
From the next day on, Uncle Frederick and Brandon’s grand search for a factory began. I stayed in Napa to finish up Redwood’s harvest, but I kept in touch with them whenever I could and spared no advice.
With his characteristic meticulousness, Uncle Frederick combed through every property near the Central Valley. At first, they went around looking at closed canning factories and dried fruit packing houses, but finding a place equipped with the high-pressure homogenizer and low-temperature pasteurization line I had emphasized was not easy.
“Brian, we went to three places just today, and they were all a mess. One place reeked of rat piss, and in another, the machines were so rusty they wouldn’t even fetch scrap value.”
Uncle Frederick’s voice was clearly exhausted. But a few days later, Brandon called from the northern outskirts of the Sacramento River, his voice full of excitement.
“We found it! We found a seriously unbelievable place!”
I immediately headed to Sacramento. There stood a factory with an old sign that read “Blue River Processing.” But unlike its exterior, the inside was completely different.
The moment I stepped into the factory, what caught my eye were gleaming stainless-steel tanks and intricately tangled pipelines. Uncle Frederick stood in the middle of the factory, his eyes sparkling like an explorer who had discovered treasure.
“Brian, look at these. The equipment is practically new.”
First, I calmed Uncle Frederick down and met the factory owner. The owner, who looked to be in his mid-fifties, spoke to us with a bitter expression.
“The bank recommended that I sign up for almond futures derivatives to hedge against fluctuations in almond prices. At the time, it seemed plausible, so I joined. But then the Lehman crisis hit this year, and wouldn’t you know it, I was hit with an unexpected margin call bomb. Hoo...”
Seeing his contorted face, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. A transaction he had entered into merely to stabilize factory operations had dragged him into the abyss.
“We’ll pay you a fair price.”
“I’d be grateful if you would.”
I carefully inspected the factory’s core equipment. The high-pressure homogenizer I had emphasized so much was German-made and top-of-the-line, capable of processing several thousand liters per hour. Beside it was an HTST—high-temperature, short-time pasteurization—system that perfectly blocked microorganisms while preserving flavor.
At this level, it was perfect.
“Uncle, this is it. This is exactly the place we were looking for.”
At my voice full of conviction, Uncle Frederick swallowed hard.
“If we grind our almonds here... then that white liquid gold will really come pouring out, right?”
“Yes, exactly.”
The acquisition negotiations proceeded in a flash. Since the factory owner was on the verge of bankruptcy, unable to pay even the bank interest, the cash acquisition Frederick proposed was a lifeline he could not refuse.
Moreover, I handed him a considerable bonus so that Uncle Frederick could learn the know-how of operating the factory. Since he not only got through his immediate crisis but also ended up with a substantial amount of cash in hand, he diligently taught Uncle Frederick and Brandon everything he knew.
And just like that, “Brandon Orchard,” into which my capital had been injected, transformed overnight into a company with a large-scale processing facility.
A few days later, on the day we had finished all the contracts and completed preparations to operate the factory, Uncle Frederick, Brandon, Chloe, and I gathered in front of a massive tank.
Brandon, his face filled with anticipation, immediately poured five tons of the finest almonds brought from the farm into the washing tank. The almonds, soaked in water for twelve hours until they had plumped up, were already ready to be sucked into the grinder.
With trembling hands, Brandon flipped the main switch.
Vrrrr—
The enormous grinder crushed the almonds, and the liquid that passed through the extractor traveled along the pipeline toward the high-pressure homogenizer. Several hours had passed since we began watching from the preparation stage. Finally, through a transparent glass pipe, a milky-white, thick liquid began to flow out.
“It’s coming out! It really looks like milk!”
Chloe let out a cheer. Uncle Frederick filled a cup with the freshly made almond milk and carefully took a sip.
“How is it, Uncle?”
Uncle Frederick savored the taste for a long while, then looked at me with reddened eyes.
“Oh, Brian. The almond flavor is alive in the milk. The smell of those almonds we used to gather on the farm—it’s all inside this one cup.”
Watching him, I smiled with satisfaction. Now, Uncle Frederick’s almonds had escaped being a raw material that had to worry about market price fluctuations and had become a secondary processed product capable of creating high added value.