Julia's Child (9781101559741) (23 page)

They both stared back uncomprehendingly.

“So, Ms. Bailey . . .”

“Julia,” I prompted.

Smith made a pup tent out of his hands and leaned back in his mesh chair. “Julia, let me tell you what it is we do here at GPG.”

I nodded, waiting. I'd been eager for an explanation ever since his mysterious business card crossed my palm.

In spite of my eagerness, J. P. Smith spoke slowly and deliberately, as if doubtful that English was my first language. “At GPG . . . we look for companies that are well loved . . . and well positioned . . . but struggling.”

The pauses in his delivery gave me ample time to feel self-conscious. I wondered what it was about my company that tipped him off that we were struggling.

“We use our resources and our experience to make those companies profitable. You see, manufacturing is our expertise, although we're also pretty good at marketing. But when we take on a brand . . . we try not to tamper with its quality or integrity—we simply take control of the input chain, the supply lines.”

Each word was spoken so carefully and so correctly that I began to wonder if there was something about me that conveyed a deficient IQ. Still, I sat as straight and still as possible, doing my best to wear an expression of attentiveness.

“We harness our experience to slim down the cost side of the equation, thereby turning the company profitable. We asked you to meet us here today because we're always on the lookout for companies that could benefit from this kind of intervention. Companies that have developed a loyal following but are not as profitable as they could be, usually because their unit costs are too high.”

In spite of his irritating delivery, J. P. Smith's words were starting to sink in. My unit costs are too high?

Yes. Yes, they were.

The men in front of me had a simple name for my troubles: “unit cost.” Sitting in this spotless corporate setting, with its commercially beige carpeting and ergonomic furnishings, the problem sounded so benign. My mountains of steaming hot anxiety, when analyzed by a conglomerate, could be reduced to a crumb of accounting jargon.

At that moment I felt a surge of appreciation for J. P. Smith and his sidekick. Maybe we were meant to be playing on the same team after all. There must be something they saw in Julia's Child, some diamond-in-the-rough quality that brought them to my booth at the trade show. I leaned forward more earnestly. “I think I understand. But tell me—do you have children? Have you tried the muffets?” I studied their faces expectantly, but my newly found admiration for them wasn't reflected back at me. Instead, they both looked mildly uncomfortable.

Smythe spoke up. “No, can't say that I have. Not yet.”

I assumed that went for both the children and the muffets. “Well, then how did you come to be interested in Julia's Child?” With a twinge of discomfort, I began to fear that they'd requested a meeting with every vendor at the trade show.

“Well, actually it was our proprietary model who chose you,” Smythe admitted.

It was my turn to show no glimmer of recognition. “Model?”

Smith took over again, going back to his dumb-kid speak. “We've built a robust computer model. We enter into it all the data that describe the current marketing environment. Then we use predictive technology to calculate which products can thrive . . . and which are doomed to fail.”

“So . . . you have a computer that likes muffets?” I'd meant it sarcastically. But as the words came out of my mouth, I realized that they made me sound like a dumb blonde. And I'm not even blonde.

Luckily, Smith laughed, proving that he had not had his sense of humor surgically removed. “My computer model likes profits, Ms. Bailey. The downturn in the economy hurts our brands' prospects. But lately our model has identified three important trends.” He ticked the points off on his fingers. “First, people are eating at home. Second, sales are up for the toddler age group, while expenditures on babies and older children are flat, and third, organic products continue to gain market share. Do you see? At the intersection of all of those trends is you.”

I stared at him, unmoved. I'd assumed that he'd found my company innovative, or at least charming. But I was just a math problem to him.

“But even so, it's not a slam dunk,” Smythe broke in.

“Why not?” I asked. Because according to their model, I'd won some kind of statistical lottery.

“Several reasons. First, there's the problem that your customer outgrows your brand in a heartbeat. And also, we're not sure about your price point. When we invest in a brand, it can't just work on the coasts, it has to play in the flyover states too. We're not sure soccer moms in the Midwest will pony up for your product.”

I took a deep breath. “Sir, I think you have
no idea
how much money people are willing to spend on their children.” It came out a little more forcefully than I'd meant it.

He stopped smiling. “Really? Tell me.”

“First of all, the growth in big families is most pronounced for people earning the most money. Haven't you heard? Four is the new three.”

There were no grins at my little joke.

“I'm not kidding. It's the wealthier families that are having more children, even in urban areas. And my brand stays with a family for longer than the toddlerhood of one child. I don't make pureed food for infants. Children eat muffets from nine months to nine years. Mothers tell me they're eating them too.”

Somehow I'd hit on a point that awakened Smith and Smythe. They sat up straighter, nodding to each other. “Crossover!” Smythe said to Smith.

“Right!” exclaimed Smith to Smythe. “It probably accounts for some of the diagrammatic shift we're seeing into the category.”

I plunged ahead. “It doesn't even matter that the economy sucks, and I'll tell you why—because spending money on one's children is the only status symbol that some mothers have left. They wouldn't dare buy themselves another designer bag, but spending on the children is not a personal indulgence—do you understand? For proof, I give you the Froggaroo stroller. Five years ago, two hundred bucks was a fortune to spend on a stroller. But the stylish Froggaroo costs eight hundred dollars. It's imported from the Netherlands. And you can't swing a diaper bag without hitting one. Even in the suburbs.”

“Go on,” Smith said. Smythe scribbled notes onto a yellow legal pad.

“But getting back to food—thirty blocks from here there's a chain baby store, called buybuy Baby. It's aptly named, because when you have a baby there are suddenly five hundred new things you have to buy for it. The biggest section in the store is the feeding section. It's the size of a terminal at JFK. They sell
dozens
of different sippy cups, with every combination of spouts, straws, and no-spill valves. Then there are the bowls: Bowls that stick to the table with a suction cup. Divided bowls for picky eaters. Bowls with a reservoir for warm water, to keep the baby's food warm. Then there are the spoons: Ergonomic spoons. Spoons shaped like a bulldozer, an airplane. Spoons with rubber tips, to protect baby's teeth. Spoons that—”

“I think we get the picture, Ms. Bailey. Parents spend a lot of money feeding the baby. But then the baby grows up.”

“No, you
don't
get the picture, gentlemen, unless you understand why parents spend so much. It isn't just a fad. It's because of anxiety. Parents harbor a lot of anxiety about feeding their children. And that trend, sadly, is only getting bigger.”

Smith and Smythe had begun nodding at each other like a couple of bobble-head dolls. So I kept going. “That's where organic comes in, and the customer becomes truly blind to the price tag. A mother will pinch pennies for some things. But 62 percent of mothers report that an ‘all-natural' designation is either ‘important' or ‘very important' to their purchasing decisions.”

I watched Smythe scribble down “62%” on his legal pad and then circle it. And I took a deep breath, ready to deliver what I considered to be the most important reason to love Julia's Child.

“The last few years have proven—even to the doubters—that these things matter. We can thank those recalls—I'm sure you've heard of them—of toys with lead paint. The troubles with ‘Totally Toxic' Thomas and ‘Poison-Me' Elmo have helped to swing the pendulum pretty far into my court.”

I was mixing metaphors like crazy, but the GPG guys were still with me. Behind their spectacles their eyes flashed. “Yeah! And melamine in baby formula!” Smythe nodded. “The organic sector probably has a sales bump, maybe
three points
, every time they mention a sick baby on television.”

It was right then that my speech lost steam. The mention of those poor Chinese babies with kidney failure drained me of excitement—and quick. As much as I wanted the world to believe in Julia's Child, I stopped short of celebrating sick infants as a sector booster. I sat back in my chair, trying to breathe normally. That tragedy was not my fault, nor was it Smith's or Smythe's. But in the crisp offices of the Gulf Pacific Group, I suddenly felt far removed from the toddlers I wanted to feed.

“Would you like to take the nickel tour, Ms. Bailey?”

I snapped to attention. “Sorry?”

“Perhaps you would like to see where some of the work gets done on our food brands? It's right here on the nineteenth floor. If you have time, that is.”

Chapter 20

I
probably hesitated a beat too long, wrestling with the idea of placing my little gem of a company onto the GPG conveyor belt. But I
was
a businesswoman. A tour might be my only chance to peer over the fence at the inner workings of a successful food business.

So I followed Smith and Smythe past the reception desk, around a corner, and into a bull-pen area. A row of offices lined the exterior walls. Daylight filtered coolly through the frosted glass on the office doors. “We house our smaller food brands here,” Smith said. “The brand managers have their offices close together, for cross-pollination of ideas. And, of course, support resources are pooled
here
.” He indicated the dense forest of cubicles crowding the center of the room.

The cubicle farm looked nothing like the Chelsea Sunshine Suites. It was cleaner, for one thing, and oddly quiet. Behind upscale tweed-upholstered walls, the workers were completely concealed. There were no neighborly voices in cheerful conversation. Instead, I could hear the sound of keyboard strokes from all around, even if I couldn't see their makers. It was the corporate equivalent of standing in a country field, listening to the chirps of crickets hidden in the tall grass. You know they're in there, but you can't see them.

Smith and Smythe moved on, down another corridor, and I hurried to keep up. “There's someone I want you to meet,” Smith said. “But first let's run you past our marketing team, so you can get a feel for the breadth of resources bestowed upon every brand at GPG.”

The beige corridor opened out into another cluster of offices, this one with a dramatically different feel. Instead of cloistered tweed walls, there were glass rooms, sprinkled with furniture in playful colors and shapes. In one of them, a group of youngish people convened. Instead of the suits that Smith and Smythe sported, these employees wore faded jeans. Their blazers were natty and their self-conscious eyewear was too cool for school.

“I'm sure you can tell, but we've reached the
idea people
,” Smythe chuckled.

It was true that the furnishings functioned like a billboard announcing: “You Have Reached a Creative Space.”

“What are they doing?” I asked. Several pictures were pinned up on the conference room wall, with the participants clustered around them.

“Brainstorming. Ideas for a new product or maybe a new direction for one of our labels. That's one of the big advantages here—so many heads to put together. An entire team to think about the public face of each brand.”

They must have been discussing a dairy product. Two of the pictures were of cows—Holsteins. It was always Holsteins, with their cheery black-and-white splotches, that got the starring roles on the dairy cartons of the world. The equally hard-working but less photogenic Jerseys and Guernseys were doomed to chew their cud in obscurity.

I stood rooted to the rug, trying to imagine how any of this related to Julia's Child. Did I have a future in this building? Could it be me in there, whiling away the day with a team of young faces staring earnestly at the image of a muffet? I would park myself like a queen bee on one of those expensive-looking beanbag chairs. I would exhort a posse of twentysomethings to wax poetic about bucolic, nutritious vegetables.

On the one hand, how could any product fail with so much energy and attention? But on the other hand, these expensive ideas would be conceived by urban youths in a hermetically sealed think tank nineteen floors above street level, while taxis honked outside. We were far, far from the pumpkin patches we'd be imploring our clients to picture.

Before I had a chance to digest this conundrum, my tour guides raced onward at warp speed. Perhaps the GPG secret to profitability was doing everything at a breakneck pace. “Our marketing department is formidable,” Smith chatted as I labored to match his strides. “But I also want to show you something else. Usually, there's at least one session going on.” He waved me into a darkened room.

Smythe brought up the rear, tiptoeing in and closing the door behind us. “This is where we hold focus groups,” he whispered.

One wall of the glorified closet we'd entered was entirely taken over by an oversize window made of one-way glass. In the adjacent room, a group of casually dressed women about my age sat around a conference table, sipping coffee. At the head of the table, a woman in a lime green suit held up an unfamiliar cereal box.