Chapter 147: The Issue of Expanding Outward

"Mr. Reberding, please calm down for a moment! Listen carefully to what I have to say. Opening the restaurant here will cause trouble for Pearson City, but what about opening it in New York? Or in Los Angeles?"

Upon hearing Carter's words, Reberding, who had just picked up the knife, felt an urge to turn around and stab this fake-smiling guy. Fortunately, due to Carter's recent fast-paced speech because of his busy schedule, he managed to say the latter part just in time, narrowly avoiding the fate of staining Pearson with blood.

"If you want to open it in New York, or in Los Angeles, go ahead! Why come to me... What are you saying? Recruiting people from Pearson to open restaurants in New York and Los Angeles?"

"Bingo!"

Carter snapped his fingers, his eyes lighting up.

The local economy is not doing well, so why not change the location? Go earn money in big cities, wouldn't that solve the problem of insufficient local production?

Unlike when Carter persuaded Kelly and the others before, the reason for persuading them to return was ultimately because Carter felt that these high school graduates had no competitive edge in big cities and would find it difficult to make money there.

But the situation now is different! His burrito business, armed with the weapon of extreme affordability, has even made Mayor Reberding nervous enough to resort to administrative orders to stop his invasion. With such competitive advantage, what else needs to be said?

New York, Los Angeles, and even Chicago or Dallas, are undoubtedly prosperous, but they are not wealthy for everyone! For most ordinary people, the prosperity of the city is related to them but not absolutely.

In cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and even Dallas, there are plenty of poor people! Even the number of poor people in these cities is enough to fill up several, or even dozens, of Pearsons.

"Mr. Reberding, let's try thinking about the problem from a different perspective. Why does solving the closure issue have to be done locally? As you just said, Pearson's conditions are right in front of us. Trying to innovate and make changes here would be too difficult. So why not look outside? Why not move the local unemployed population to elsewhere?"

"You mean, get them involved in your burrito business?"

Reberding thoughtfully stroked his chin. Both were smart people, and he quickly understood Carter's train of thought, but what followed was shock...

In this day and age, having the means of extreme affordability and still being rational enough to share it, such a person... Are you God?!

"Yes, since my cheap restaurant will encroach on their market..."

Carter pointed outside the window, then continued:

"Or to put it another way, even without my invasion, those high-priced restaurants would be struggling in this environment. Since they will inevitably be unemployed and go bankrupt sooner or later, why not join us?"

"My restaurant will provide them with training, and I will go back to integrate supply resources to provide them with guarantees. We will establish a unified brand, unified management, and I can even provide them with funding to help them open more and more branches in other cities. Let's bring back the money from New York, from Los Angeles, to Pearson!"

"Are you saying you'll lend them money with your Forest Bank? How much money do you have now? You have to know that rent in New York and Los Angeles is not as low as it is here in Pearson. A 600-square-foot rent here is already something to be grateful for; in New York, if you can rent 60 square feet, you should be thanking your lucky stars. You..."

Reberding's "our Pearson" made Carter twitch at the corner of his eye, but Reberding, who realized the feasibility of this plan, wasn't paying attention at this point.

As long as Carter could bring benefits to Pearson, bring money... he could say whatever he wanted, even if he called it Mars, Reberding wouldn't mind! He might even exclaim, "Welcome to earth"...

"Well, money... Mr. Reberding, you don't need to worry too much. I still have quite a bit of cash on hand, probably between four to six million according to Forest Bank's records. It shouldn't be a problem! Plus, this isn't just my investment; Pearson's citizens will naturally contribute a portion."

"According to Forest Bank's data, Pearson now... conservatively estimated, has concentrated four to six million in cash. Plus, with my reserves, it should be enough to expand the burrito shop to almost all major cities in the United States! But in doing so, the supply chain becomes a problem..."

Thinking of the headache-inducing issues, Carter took out a cigarette, lit it, and pondered. And with these commercial matters, Trafalgar, who was convenient for interruptions, didn't understand them well, and Benjamin, who understood some, didn't want to interrupt. So, for a moment, the room fell silent.

The low cost of his own burrito business mainly lies in the raw materials. To be precise, only the cost of the main food ingredients is low, while the procurement cost of other ingredients is currently much higher than McDonald's.

So, speaking frankly, Carter felt that his own burritos were quite subpar. The tortilla was much thicker than the Mexican chicken rolls of later years, and the meat content was correspondingly much lower. Only in this way could extreme cost compression be achieved.

To avoid a situation where one price is low but multiple prices are inferior, Carter incorporated the concept of handcrafted pancakes into the burritos, adding customized content. However, this increase also brought about two serious problems.

First, the difficulty of standardization increased!

In his previous life, Carter worked part-time at McDonald's during college. Even McDonald's took standardization to an extreme level, with precise timings for frying chicken and controlling oil temperature. In terms of transporting semi-finished raw materials and storage standards, McDonald's almost pushed quality standards and cost control to the limit.

At the same time, to meet his insane requirement of "consistent taste of McDonald's hamburgers globally," McDonald's even achieved a high level of consistency in processing.

However, achieving this level of consistency is difficult in the burrito business. Even in the current production model mainly relying on manual labor, achieving completely uniform size specifications for tortillas and complete uniformity in meat content is not easy.

Second, the supply chain needs to be extended!

The supply chain involves a series of related issues such as supply, transportation, initial processing, warehousing, and distribution. While increasing customized content makes burritos more popular in the market, the corresponding supply chain is getting longer...

For example, in chicken supply, as the largest chicken farming center in the United States, prices for purchasing chicken in Georgia are definitely the lowest; beef comes from Texas; the main ingredient for tortillas, corn, is mainly produced in Iowa on a large scale, with cornfields there being 2 million acres larger than those in the second-ranked Illinois...

And this is just for the supply of several main ingredients, which basically involves the southeastern, southern, and central regions of the United States. If various other ingredients like cucumbers and potatoes are added, it becomes difficult to unify the prices of these supplies.

Moreover, the costs of transportation and warehousing may also increase significantly...