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Volume 3 Aftermath 2 Depression is also an opportunity

The development of things always has its inertia, and now the William Consortium, which is a big business, is like a high-speed train, and it is impossible to stop at once, let alone achieve a beautiful transformation with Situ Nan's words

He found himself overly optimistic about his estimates, and that the cancellation of military orders had a greater impact on the Wei consortium's companies than expected.

After losing the government's order, the company had to find its own way out and open up the market. The huge scale of production could not be maintained during the war, and it became natural to reduce costs.

In times of economic downturn, the most straightforward way to do this is to lay off employees. If it doesn't, Bethlehem United Steel plans to cut 10 percent of its workforce over the next two years, with more than 2,500 employees laid off. The remaining employees may also be asked to take a pay cut.

The worst was the Stoney Foods Company, an enterprise that began to supply Europe with all kinds of food materials from 1914, and it was exceptionally good during the war, providing millions of tons of canned beef, flour and other supplies to the front, and it was the large kitchen of the rear of the American army. In the past 1918, the annual revenue exceeded 100 million US dollars, and the profit was 30 million US dollars, and it was a non-negligible member of the William consortium.

After the end of the war, the number of American GIs dropped from 4 million to 1 million at once, and in the end only a dozen or two hundred thousand army and a navy of tens of thousands remained. Without these millions of gluttonies, Stoney Foods, as a production company mainly engaged in military food supplies, had a hard time.

Although half a year ago, under the instructions of Situ Nan, Stoney Foods began to reduce its inventory and no longer purchase meat, wheat and other raw materials on a large scale, but in the end there were still a large amount of canned food, flour and other foods left in the warehouse, which were enough for 1 million to eat for a month, all of which were originally purchased by the government, and the deposit had been paid, but they were all canceled later, which really hurt Stoney Foods Company, because the maintenance costs of the warehouse every day cost a lot.

Suburbs of Los Angeles, Stoney Foods.

Situ Nan came over to take a look on a whim. California has a thriving agriculture industry, and Stoney Foods also has a large food processing plant in Los Angeles. After the war, Stoney Foods was greatly affected.

Walked out of the warehouse of the food company, followed by David Stoney, the general manager of Stoney Foods? Gao Li, looking at Gao Li with a sad face, he smiled: "It seems that doing business with the government is actually not an easy task. ”

"Isn't it? The bunnies said they canceled it, and the little deposit they gave was not enough for me to maintain the warehouse. Gorry said with a crying face.

"So be it! You contact Meihua, they may need these things. "Stuart Nan reminded David? Gao Li Dao.

"Really? I'll give it a try later. "David? Gao Li said with some excitement, thinking to himself: If we can get through the Guò Meihua Company, maybe we can open up the Asian market, and this may be a new way.

Situ Nan smiled, the Meihua Company employs a large number of workers in Nanyang, and consumes a large amount of food every day, and it is also cost-effective to import grain and food from the United States. However, Situ Nan's real purpose is actually in the security team in Nanyang, and Stoney Foods has accumulated a batch of surplus military rations, which may be used for it.

This idea was also inadvertently conceived by Situ Nan. Stoney Foods is indeed facing a lot of trouble, but isn't life just about food, clothing, housing and transportation?

Food is an industry that will never be eliminated in any case, and it should not be difficult for Stoney Foods to get out of the current predicament as long as it finds a suitable path.

"Gao Li, I'll give you two Jianyì! One is the development of nutritious and healthy food, and the other is fast catering, both of which I think are two good directions for the company's future development. ”

"Nutritious health food and fast food?" Gao Li was thoughtful.

Situ Nan went on to explain: "Yes. Although the current food manufacturing industry is not very prosperous, but this is only temporary, I believe that in the future people's living standards are getting higher and higher, more people will pay attention to food health, they will be willing to buy more nutritious food to make their bodies healthier, now there are no other companies in the United States to study this aspect, this is the opportunity for Stoney Foods. As for fast food, there is a fast food company in San Francisco called M Kee, which was opened by a Chinese named Ma Decai, and has now opened 5 large branches. Truth be told, it was my friend's drive. But if you're interested, you can check it out. ”

"Good. I remembered. Gao Li nodded and said, thinking that since Situ Nan admired it so much, he must go and see what kind of fast food restaurant he was.

For food manufacturing, Gao Li has his own unique understanding, Stoney Foods itself produces canned food, rations and other foods for the army, which can also be regarded as fast food, right?

After the advent of fast food, it was very popular in San Francisco, but soon after the damn Spanish flu, business was much worse, but as the flu disappeared, business was booming again, and who doesn't love cheap and convenient food? The rise in prices has not only affected ordinary wage earners, but even some white-collar middle-level workers in the company have paid attention to saving, and more and more people have begun to abandon restaurants and enter M Kee fast food restaurants.

A month later, when Gorry quietly showed up at a fast food restaurant in San Francisco, his heart was touched, as if he saw a new path.

Stoney Foods, of course, did not become a Stoney Fast Food Company, but seeing the lucrative Ori, he offered to buy M Kee (Ma Decai Catering Company), but was rejected.

Later, under the mediation of Situ Nan, the two parties reached a cooperation agreement, and Stoney Foods invested US$1 million in M Kee, accounting for 60% of the shares, but promised to guarantee Ma Decai's status in M Kee.

This is a good thing, with the investment of Stoney Foods, M Kee's expansion has accelerated dramatically, and it has jumped out of San Francisco and opened two large branches in Los Angeles. At the same time, it also opened branches in Sacramento, San Diego, Long Beach and other large cities in California.

A fast-food storm began to get used to California, and a few years later, Hollywood movies also added fast food material, so more and more people in the United States knew about M Ji, and at the same time, there was also a hamburger craze in cities such as Chicago and St. Louisiana in the east. Thunder from the beginning? When Crocker saw M Ji fast food in the movie, he was shocked that there were people in faraway California who had exactly the same idea as himself, providing fast food service, and doing it better than himself.

M Kee Fast Food has obtained a lot of food processing technology from Stoney Foods, but after all, it is two different companies, each with its own main business, although Stoney Foods Co., Ltd. has invested in M Kee to enter the fast food industry, but it is still mainly engaged in food R&D and production.

Gao Li heeded Situ Nan's advice and shifted the company's focus to nutritious and healthy food, investing more money in the research and development of milk powder, beverages, beer and other products. These efforts were all hugely successful a few years later.

In particular, Stoney Foods and Stoney Farms, also a subsidiary of the William Foundation, have cooperated in the dairy industry to become one of the world's largest dairy trusts integrating raw materials, production, R&D and sales. This is not to be said later.

Situ Nan is now less and less concerned with these specific matters, and more from the strategic side of the development of the William Consortium. In order to make money, Situ Nan spun off the original Stoney Company and went public, and in addition to Stoney Foods Company, he also spun off a Stoney Agricultural Company.

In fact, the real trouble is the Stoney Agricultural. U.S. agriculture is a mechanized big industry, and every time an economic depression occurs, it is more of a depression in agriculture. Supply outstrips demand, overproduction, crops on farms cannot be sold, livestock in pastures are slaughtered at extremely low prices, and even large quantities of unsellable milk are poured into rivers, causing agricultural companies to suffer heavy losses.

In fact, this is the situation faced by Stoney Agriculture. Fortunately, Stoney Agriculture was able to get a steady stream of money from Occidental Petroleum's secret accounts.

The agricultural recession has caused many farmers to abandon their farms and invest in other industries. In line with the principle of abandoning what people take, Stoney Agriculture, which was obviously facing huge losses, bought a large amount of land and took the land of the bankrupt farmer as its own, no matter how remote and poor the geology was, Stoney Agricultural Company did not dislike it at all, and the price was not low. As long as these are in their designated areas, well, most of the farms are in California and Texas. Especially close to the city of Long Beach and East Texas.

In the final analysis, it is nothing more than oil, and those lands are in or near the two major oil fields of East Texas and Houston, and the public acquisition in the name of agricultural companies can not only quietly occupy these potential oil-producing lands, but also a defensive measure to reduce the possibility of the Western oil company's oil reserves being discovered.

This is also a covert expansion. The two major oil fields in East Texas and Houston are so large that even if Situ Nan has been secretly buying land in the past few years, he only occupies a large part of them, and this agricultural depression has given him another chance.

In the two years since the United States entered the war, inflation began to inflate and prices rose, but workers' wages did not fully keep up with the rate of price increases. In the spring of 1919, prices rose by 75 percent compared to before the war, and many men who had just returned from victory on the battlefield had to face a difficult living situation. Although the government gave each soldier a subsidy before they were discharged, they had to face the reality that jobs were getting harder and harder to find.

Factories began to lay off workers to reduce costs, because the products that used to sell well were not in demand, and a large number of similar goods and materials were backlogged, and competition began to become fierce. When prices are rising, there are also some goods that are being reduced in price and promoted, but no one cares because consumers are short of money. It's a paradox.

The post-war depression was also an opportunity. Business opportunities are always reserved for those with keen insight and sufficient capital, and every recession may also be a good opportunity for large conglomerates to shear their sheep. The big monopolies, having survived the losses caused by the recession, also had the spare power to achieve rapid expansion at low cost. Wells Fargo, Occidental Petroleum have opened their jaws and bitten into the poor dying little companies.

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