Acquiring the 'Blue River Processing Plant' located on the outskirts of Sacramento and securing the factory did not mean white gold would come pouring out immediately. Even though the machines were ready, the branding preparations needed to actually run those machines were not.
"Brian, I've made up my mind. I'm going to make the world's most incredible almond milk. On my father's honor!"
Listening to Brandon shout so boldly, one might think Uncle Frederick had cultivated an almond farm his entire life. It had only been a mere two years. Still, high ambition was a good thing.
Anyway, the days he had spent living in harvest dust hadn't been bad, but now his face was far more vibrant than before. But I knew the fatal weakness hidden behind his passion.
"That's a good idea, Brandon. But tell me, how much almond milk have you actually drunk?"
"Huh? Well... just once or twice from the supermarket, occasionally?"
I expected as much. To a typical California farmer like him, milk would mean nothing but white milk squeezed from a cow. Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles. Nothing is as dangerous as a general who goes out to the battlefield without knowing his enemy.
"You know you can't go into business lightly with that mindset, right?"
"Y-yeah. I know..."
From that day on, Brandon's grueling tasting labor began. For several days, he scoured every market in Sacramento and San Francisco and swept up almost every type of almond milk sold on the market.
On the dining table at Deer Ridge Country Club, over thirty paper cartons lined up like castle walls. Brandon held a cup and chugged nothing but milk from morning till night.
"Ugh, what is this? It tastes like a paper box soaked in water and squeezed?"
"This is too watery. It's like bland water with an almond scent just passing through!"
Brandon grumbled yet meticulously recorded his impressions in a notebook. He clicked his tongue as he looked at the ingredient labels on the back of the big corporation products.
"Mom, look at this. The almond content isn't even 2%. The rest is all water and some unidentified chemical additives. And people pay money to drink this stuff?"
Amelia emptied a cup her son had brought her and replied.
"Oh my, you're right."
The moment he tasted the high-content 7% sample extracted using a lab-grade small homogenizer, Brandon's eyes shot wide open.
"Good heavens... this is a completely different drink. It feels like drinking whole raw almonds? It's heavy and savory, almost like fresh cream. Father, this is it! There may be people who haven't tasted this flavor, but there won't be anyone who drinks it just once!"
The conviction realized through his own tongue was more powerful than anything. From that moment, Frederick felt his son's eyes begin to change—from the gaze of a farmer to that of a brewer chasing perfect flavor.
Once the product's substance was solidified, the next hurdle was creating a face for it. The day of the first meeting with the sophisticated marketing agency 'Metro Branding' located in downtown San Francisco.
"First, we recommend targeting urban women in their twenties and thirties. With the keywords Light, Slim, and Beauty, we propose an elegant package in pastel tones. We will include an almond illustration very small and pretty."
As the marketing team leader's flashy presentation continued, the father and son's faces turned bewildered. Brandon, who had devoted all his energy to the quality of the almond milk, raised his hand.
"Wait a moment. I don't want our farm's almond milk to be treated like other almond milks—watery and insipid. Our farm's almonds are rich and overflowing with nutrients. We have some milk we prepared here, so please try it..."
Brandon handed out the almond milk he had brought to people who were setting the brand concept without even tasting the milk. The staff who drank the milk from the boxes soon opened their eyes wide.
"Ooh..."
"Wow, it's really savory."
"It's completely different from any almond milk I've ever drunk."
They too sold almond milk, so they had casually set the concept as usual, but the almond milk Brandon brought far exceeded their expectations.
In fact, at this time there were no premium products with almond content exceeding 5%, so this reaction was not particularly strange.
The marketing team leader pondered for a moment and said.
"Let's change the concept. Rather than diet, let's be faithful to the essence of almond milk. We'll openly target the low content that almond milk has had until now and emphasize premium. Real almond milk. That's what we'll put forward."
Brandon immediately clapped his hands.
"That's exactly what I wanted to say! Compared to our milk, the rest of the companies' almond milks are practically all fake!"
Another marketing company employee who nodded added.
"What's more, since you farm it yourselves, let's give premium to the raw materials too. While commercial milks use almonds from who-knows-where, we should say we contain Frederick Farm's soil and sunlight. Rather than urban women's pretentious pastel tones, we emphasize the farmer's honest sweat."
In the end, the brand name was decided as Frederick's Harvest. Instead of a flashy design, the logo featured rough farmer's hands carefully cradling an almond fruit. The image of a transparent and honest farmer's harvest was born that way.
The remaining month until launch was truly a hellish race. The Sacramento factory entered a 24-hour full-operation system.
The most difficult task was adjusting the pressure of the high-pressure homogenizer. Because the almond content was high, the particles could easily clump or the layers could separate. Brandon laid out a cot on the factory floor and lived there.
"Father, when I raise it to 800 bar, the mouthfeel is too chalky. I think 720 bar is optimal..."
His eyes bloodshot red, Brandon poured out thousands of liters of samples adjusting minute pressure differences to find the best mouthfeel. On the packaging line, he held a magnifying glass and watched over the inspection station to check the Tetra Pak printing condition.
One night a week before launch, the product that had finally passed final inspection came flowing out on the conveyor belt. On the sleek paper carton, Frederick's name was prominently embossed.
Frederick held a finished pack for the first time at the end of the line. He had only cultivated raw fruits like cherries his entire life, so seeing the small box containing almond milk bearing his name gave him an indescribably strange feeling.
His large hand trembled as it brushed down the smooth surface of the paper carton.
"I thought I'd only be eating dirt my whole life... to think my name would be embossed so magnificently."
Brandon turned his head at the strange emotion he felt for the first time while watching his father stroke the almond milk carton.
Finally, launch day. Simultaneous placement began in Walmart, America's largest distribution network, and Whole Foods Market, the indicator of the premium market.
In truth, it is extremely difficult to launch an almond milk and immediately place the product in such famous markets. But the influence Frederick and Chloe wielded in the distribution industry made it possible.
The Royal Taio of Harris Farm had not hesitated to stock the almond milk, if only to receive cherries and pears. Furthermore, since it was a high-content almond milk differentiated from existing ones, there was no reason to refuse.
At launch, consumers murmured upon seeing the price tag. The price of $5.99, nearly two dollars more expensive than regular products, was inevitably burdensome.
"What almond milk is this expensive?"
"I looked because the packaging was pretty, but the price is wicked."
But the reversal began at the tasting booth. A Walmart store in Sacramento. Since it was the first day, Brandon himself came out and stood at the tasting booth; no trace of his old immature and rebellious appearance could be found. He had become a young man showing passionate salesmanship solely to promote his own product, when a housewife doing her shopping tentatively downed the sample cup he handed her.
"Oh my? What is this? Why is it so savory?"
The housewife with wide eyes immediately ran to the aisle and put two packs of 'Frederick's Harvest' in her cart.
"I can't drink milk, but this is really good."
"Thank you!"
Word of mouth spread like wildfire. The overwhelming flavor delivered by the 7% high content instantly destroyed the price resistance line. The positioning had succeeded not as a diet drink but as a 'hearty meal' or a 'gourmet beverage.'
Watching customers sweep up Frederick's Harvest like hotcakes, Brandon didn't even realize his mouth was hanging open as he worked.
The drawing room of Château Margaux. Suffocating silence flowed among the five people seated on splendid gilt chairs in the Louis XV style. Portraits of past owners hanging on the walls looked down sternly upon this bizarre gathering. That those who had guarded the pinnacle of Bordeaux for centuries had gathered in one place to mix even a single drop of grape was an unprecedented event in history.
Corinne Mentzelopoulos, selected as the most neutral host, elegantly set down her teacup and broke the silence.
"The whole world is cheering our announcement of the union cuvée, but... what truly matters is from now on. The question of 'where to place the soul of this historic wine,' you see."
No sooner had her words fallen than the proxy of Château Latour opened his briefcase and charged forth. He swept the room with steel-like eyes.
"The pretext is peace, but the essence is the majesty to overwhelm Redwood Winery's 'Aether.' The 2008 Latour Cabernet Sauvignon is the pinnacle of robust structure. We must make our grapes the base of 60% or more for the center to hold. A wine with a weak backbone only buys ridicule from the upstarts of Napa Valley."
At this, Count Eric of Château Lafite Rothschild, seated nearby, burst into a hollow laugh. He wiped his glasses with a silk handkerchief and responded cynically.
"Structure? Is the union cuvée some kind of heavy machinery? One cannot call a wine that excludes Lafite's delicacy and noble flavor the quintessence of Bordeaux. The grapes of Lafite, first among first growths, must become the body. That is what decorum means."
Countess Philippine of Château Mouton Rothschild, watching the two's battle of wills, folded her fan nervously. At the snap, Count Eric's eyebrows twitched.
"Hmph! Are the other Châteaux invisible here? Eric. If Mouton's splendor and artistic sense do not become the base, I will leave this union at once! Did you think I came here to have my grapes stand as extras to your stale pride? I would rather send my grapes to that youth called 'Aether'—it would be far more interesting!"
At her provocative remark, the drawing room turned as cold as if ice water had been splashed upon it. The argument spread uncontrollably. The issue of whose wine would become the center soon escalated into a house feud over which Château's underground cellar would conduct the blending. For the Bordeaux First Growth Châteaux, the brewing location was the family's sacred ground.
"It must be Lafite's cellar! That place is the heart of Bordeaux!"
"Nonsense! Have you forgotten that Mouton's oak barrels boast the best technique?"
Noble dignity had long since disappeared. To put even one more drop of their own grapes, to place their family name even one line ahead, they continued a shameful war of words. The karmic debt of cutting each other down across a single wall for hundreds of years was erupting at this decisive moment.
In the end, Corinne proposed a mediation plan, holding her head as if exhausted. Her voice was laden with deep self-loathing.
"Stop! For blending, each Château shall bring exactly one barrel, and we will decide by blind tasting. The location shall be Lafite's cellar, but let us put the five families' coats of arms on the label in exactly the same size, down to the decimal point. So that none stands out."
At this, Count Eric smiled in satisfaction at having protected his cellar. But Corinne looked at the foggy vineyard outside the window and muttered desolately to herself.
"I don't know whether we are making a great wine right now, or what on earth we are doing."
It was a scene of a sorrowful agreement in which the gods of Bordeaux had sold their family souls, all because of a mere youth from Napa.