Cherry War (4)
The San Francisco offices of ZEN-NOH—Japan’s largest agricultural distribution group and its Americas headquarters—were thick with the usual end-of-year scramble. Sato Takeshi, the import manager for fresh produce, was no exception.
“Manager Sato, have you seen this? It’s a fax from Harris Orchard in Brentwood.”
The sheet his subordinate held out carried a neatly lettered proposal, with a technical report bearing the UC Davis seal attached.
“What is this?”
“A proposal from a farm that wants to supply cherries on its own. The content is quite interesting.”
Manager Sato adjusted his reading glasses and skimmed the pages.
“Harris Orchard… But what is all this? Hydro-Cooling and MAP packaging technology? A single California grower invested in equipment this expensive?”
There was a level of detail far beyond the cherry farms they usually dealt with. Sato narrowed his eyes and worked through the documents with care. He was a veteran who had put California cherries into the Japanese market through every kind of trial, yet every year brought the same familiar agony.
Come May, nearly half the imported cherries would go soft before they even arrived, and he would take the full brunt of returns from department-store food halls. That was simply his routine. Against that backdrop, the papers that had just landed on his desk were more than enough to hold his attention.
“Manager, take a look at this sample box that came with it.”
His subordinate carefully opened the long carton. Inside sat a single bottle of cherry wine labeled Ceracia.
“It’s wine?”
“There’s a memo here.”
Cherries produced at Harris Orchard are supplied to Redwood Winery at a volume of one hundred tons per year, and are born as Ceracia.
“Hmm… Redwood Winery? Is that a famous place?”
Sato, who knew little of the liquor trade, asked the question. His subordinate answered at once.
“In the wine world it’s quite well known. A few months ago it swept some of the industry’s major awards.”
The subordinate tapped the words Redwood Selected printed at the foot of the fax.
“Ah—you were in liquor before you came over to fresh produce, weren’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“Well then, I suppose that gives the farm some credibility. How long they can actually hold cherry freshness is still an open question, though…”
As a rule he treated any claim from an independent farm hungry for export as half-false until proven otherwise. Approaching every pitch with that critical eye, he believed, kept him from making costly mistakes.
“Still—it’s an attractive prospect, isn’t it?”
“If they can even partly stop the chronic rapid aging of cherries, it’s more than worth dealing with. I need to see it for myself. If these numbers are real, we could be holding the red diamond that rewrites the entire California cherry distribution map next spring.”
One day later, at Harris Orchard in Brentwood.
“This is the equipment I mentioned, Manager Sato.”
Where Fredrick pointed, a mobile hydro-cooler trailer from Cascade Cooling stood in full command, its logo crisp on the side. The metal unit, the size of a twenty-foot container, caught the winter sun and shone with a cool gleam.
In front of it, a middle-aged Japanese man in a dark navy coat adjusted his glasses with a thoroughly serious expression. Sato Takeshi, import manager for fresh produce under Japan’s largest agricultural distribution group, ZEN-NOH.
Beside Fredrick stood Chloe in a clean semi-formal suit. The glasses she rarely wore, the white blouse, and the skirt that fell to her knees made her look less like a farm owner than an executive of some corporation. A few steps behind her, I waited.
“Ho… so this is the hydro-cooler listed in the documents. Heavy equipment like this is usually kept at a co-op’s shared packing house, is it not…?”
Manager Sato asked in English touched with a distinctly Japanese accent. Chloe stepped forward from Fredrick’s side and answered. She had been up all night preparing for the meeting, yet her eyes held no fatigue at all—they shone brighter than ever.
“That is exactly why we left the co-op, Manager Sato. California’s cherry co-ops are still stuck in the old era; they refuse innovation. They don’t feel any need for equipment like this. Every May and June they harvest cherries and a certain amount of money simply comes in.”
“So a lack of crisis sense keeps them from embracing change?”
“Exactly. Harris Orchard cherries are the finest quality in California. Here is the transaction statement we signed with Gelson’s this past May.”
She held out the statement. The unit price of the cherries made Manager Sato’s eyes widen.
“Three dollars a pound? Nearly double the usual price.”
“That’s right. The reason is our signature variety—Royal Tioga.”
Chloe handed him a pamphlet produced by Zaiger Genetics, the developers of the variety, and continued.
“Royal Tioga is deeper and more uniform in color than traditional Bing cherries, and its Brix runs nineteen to twenty-one compared with Bing’s sixteen to eighteen. That’s how we commanded this price.”
“So the variety itself is different.”
He studied the pamphlet and nodded.
“As of 2008, Royal Tioga accounts for thirty percent of our production, and that will rise to fifty percent in 2009. That doesn’t mean our Bing quality is inferior either. If you look at last year’s Costco transaction statement, you’ll see we traded at least twenty percent above other farms’ cherries.”
Sato took the papers from Chloe one after another, his expression growing more and more engaged. He had sat through countless meetings with farms and firms, but few pushed so boldly with objective metrics laid out in front of him.
“I will grant, for now, that Harris Orchard cherries are objectively superior to those of other California farms—assuming these statements are genuine.”
“Of course. You should verify them. Contact Gelson’s and Costco and you can confirm the transaction records from the time.”
Chloe then pointed to the control panel mounted on the trailer’s side and continued her explanation.
“This shower-type hydro-cooler drops the cherries’ core temperature to two degrees Celsius within one hour of harvest. Zero-degree chilled water passes straight through the entire crate and forcibly stops the cherries’ cellular respiration.”
“Pitting and stem browning both occur because fruit is not cooled immediately in the field. We have that covered.”
“So this machine is what carries high-quality cherries all the way from the field without losing them?”
“Exactly.”
“But if the temperature rises again during transport, it’s useless, is it not? As you know, aircraft cargo holds are never perfectly temperature-controlled.”
As if she had been waiting for the question, Chloe drew a sample of transparent specialty film from her bag.
“That is why we introduced MAP—Modified Atmosphere Packaging. This specialty film lowers the oxygen concentration inside the bag and holds carbon dioxide around ten percent. Until the moment the box is opened at Narita Airport, the cherries will not even realize they have been picked from the tree.”
Chloe’s delivery never faltered. The night before she had stayed up rehearsing the briefing in front of me until it was perfect.
We had brought the equipment in during winter precisely so we could lock down forward contracts and solve the cash shortage before the cherries shipped. If a thin rehearsal cost us the deal, how bitter would that have been? Of course she had practiced as if her life depended on it.
Manager Sato ran his fingers over the film in silence, then looked out across the field of bare cherry trees.
“The technology… is excellent. But, Miss Chloe, the Japanese market does not move on technology alone. Trust is extremely important to us. We need a guarantee that a single independent farm—Harris Orchard—can take full responsibility for this scale of air freight and deliver to the end. If next May’s crop is poor, how will you meet contracted volume without a co-op behind you?”
Fredrick’s face, which had been calm until then, tightened slightly. It was a practical sticking point. An independent farm’s greatest weakness was always stability. That was when I, who had been watching quietly from behind, stepped forward.
“Manager Sato, if the issue is trust, I believe I can answer for that.”
Sato’s gaze locked on me.
“And you are…?”
“Brian of Redwood Winery. Redwood Winery will stand as guarantor on the forward contract with Harris Orchard. If non-performance causes any loss, Redwood will take responsibility.”
“……Does Redwood Winery have a reason to go that far?”
“Redwood is a strategic business partner of Harris Orchard. The greater the farm’s profit, the greater ours. That is the relationship.”
Only then did Manager Sato’s mouth open a fraction in understanding, and a note of admiration entered his voice.
“Ahh, I see. When you sent the Ceracia wine you did say Redwood would guarantee the supply, but having the party himself stand here and answer makes it easier for us to place our trust as well.”
He took a small notebook from his pocket and began to write.
“I would like a forward contract on forty percent of next May’s Royal Tioga volume, and thirty percent of the premium Bing cherry volume. Price will be a twenty-percent premium over standard air-freight market rates. In return, you must attach the harvest-day hydro-cooling data report to every shipment.”
At that moment Chloe pushed her glasses up with a look of absolute resolve.
“It has to be thirty percent.”
“Thirty is a bit…”
“I guarantee you—Royal Tioga held at peak freshness with hydro-cooling can take a forty-percent premium even if we ship it straight to New York. So even if air-freight pricing already sits above ordinary wholesale, we need an additional thirty percent or there is no deal.”
For a second Manager Sato looked blank, then glanced from Chloe to Fredrick to me, silently asking for help—his eyes saying, What if this kills the whole contract?
But Fredrick and I only shrugged, making it clear that Chloe was the one in charge. The baffled manager asked,
“This is a price outside any reasonable estimate. Do you really believe a deal can close at that number?”
“If the deal doesn’t close, then so be it. Protecting the value of our orchard’s cherries leaves us no other choice.”
Having said that, Chloe checked the small, pretty watch on her wrist and continued.
“If the negotiation with ITOCHU Corporation in about three hours also falls through, our cherries will go not to Japan but to Korea.”
For an instant Manager Sato’s pupils wavered. ZEN-NOH, as an agricultural cooperative, existed first to protect its own farmers—but ITOCHU was a private conglomerate that would never willingly let a chance like this slip past.
The moment ITOCHU’s name left her mouth, even if it was only a bluff, the thirty-percent premium became something he had no choice but to grant.
In the end Manager Sato extended his hand.
“Then we have a deal.”
“A wise decision. Once department-store customers taste our cherries, they will raise hell trying to buy more.”
“We shall see in May just how far that hydro-cooling technology can go. Ah—and since this is a direct farm deal, you will have a brand as well?”
“We will create the brand by March and send it to you.”
“Excellent. I look forward to it.”
Manager Sato drafted the contract right beside the trailer, then left the orchard.
We watched his car until it disappeared down the road, then turned to one another with faces full of exhilaration.
“Kyaaaaaah!”
Chloe threw herself into a hug, the polished professional of a moment ago vanishing into pure, giddy charm.
“Did you see? How was I? Completely sexy, right?”
“Yeah. You were the absolute best.”
Right in front of us Fredrick wore an expression that was neither quite a smile nor quite tears, so I fought to keep my own face as neutral as I could manage.
“And the outfit—totally sexy, wasn’t it?”
“……Let’s go inside. Inside. You worked hard…”