Chapter 34

Chapter 34

The Price of Success

Even on the path to success there are always hardships.

In my previous life too I succeeded as a chef thanks to the cheat of the status window, but that path wasn't always flat.

People's envy and jealousy, slander is rather cute. There was also a time a competitor who built a similar image to me manipulated to bring me down, and scammers who saw me as easy prey plotted schemes saying let's partner.

Probably because I was a street life from an orphanage with no academic background or connections I looked easy. Of course I naturally retaliated against all of them.

Anyway looking back my life was far from flat. Falling into 1900s Britain after dying is also like that.

So I developed a habit of constantly doubting. When something starts going even a little well, I become anxious first.

And in the recent two months, that anxiety was soaring endlessly.

�Everything is going too well so it's rather strange...�

The Chicken and Chips on Baker Street has now reached the point of leading the trend, and they even closed the stall and set up a restaurant. Now even if I don't pay much attention they do well on their own. They were also talking about setting up a branch but that's not my business.

Mom's health is still not good, but still she eats a lot of delicious things with the money earned and her complexion has become much better than before.

One more. There was a new discovery in the point shop. Wondering if there's an ingredient that can be used as medicine I was experimenting a little every day, and I was really startled after accidentally summoning a red ginseng stick I received as a gift in my previous life and threw away saying it was tasteless.

Medicine doesn't work, but health supplements do? But that was also limited to red ginseng sticks. Because I almost never bought and ate such things usually. But again I don't know what the standard is but this requires a tremendous amount of points more than finished products, needing over a thousand for a month's worth.

So to fill that I had to cause a ruckus in the kitchen for a long time. Right now points are piled up close to 200,000, but still seeing them decrease is somehow anxious. If there was something like automatic hunting using Edith it would have been good, but points don't accumulate at all unless I make the cooking directly with my hands.

Of course I couldn't hand over the modern-packaged red ginseng sticks either, so I suffered tearing them one by one and sealing them in bottles. Anyway thanks to that it seems she showed a little improvement. I was worried it might not suit her constitution but that doesn't seem to be it.

My restaurant has a full month's reservations piled up. Normally high-end restaurants in London have limited demand so the average reservation rate is about 60-70%, but at some moment it exceeded 80% and literally broke through the high point.

Upper class people line up and eat. And that at first only gentry acquainted with Mr. Henry used it, but at some moment social celebrities, local notables, even famous opera singers lined up one after another.

Unlike theater actors treated as lower class, the popularity of opera singers of this era was exactly the same as pop stars of my previous life. That is, it means my cooking has really started to be genuinely recognized in upper society.

The refrigerator research also seemed to be progressing more smoothly than expected. A telegram flew from America, the news that Mr. Tesla and Mr. Edison really set up a joint company and are gathering researchers through connections.

American media are also noisy asking aren't the two enemies, what on earth is happening? They say half of the research funds were covered by Lord Crookes. Well even if it's cutting water with a knife at least they drew the knife. I just hope they produce meaningful results quickly.

Lady Edith started running wild noticeably after experiencing the Holmes incident last time. I don't know what inspiration the peanut butter dishes I taught previously gave, but she was creating various transformed recipes unimaginable in this era like crazy.

Of course she made peanut butter cookies and scones that I didn't even teach, and when I saw her even softening pudding or cake with peanut butter even I was astonished. And she put that out in a dessert competition hosted by some duchess and even won?

Well, honestly I'm almost an outsider in the baking and confectionery side, so if she grows it's something to welcome with both hands. If a good image of peanut butter is formed in the upper class, it will be beneficial to my business too so it's good, right?

Speaking of peanut butter, honestly 90% of my anxiety was because of that.

To conclude first, peanut butter was safely released on the British market. If it just ends at that level it's fortunate, as expected it hit big, no super big. My peanut butter quickly occupied the position of Golden Syrup that fell due to the hygiene defect incident.

Even for a short time, it was to the extent that even the sales of Chicken and Chips fluctuated, so it was a commotion to the point of saying the Honey Butter Chip wave go away. Peanut butter articles were even carried on the front page of major daily newspapers, and that became advertising again and caused a result of tremendously fueling people's curiosity.

When things unexpectedly go too well, anxiety of when it will fall comes flooding. So I also became curious about the situation and secretly scouted the factory after a long time.

"Boss! Telegrams asking about the possibility of importing peanut butter are arriving one after another from the embassies of Australia, India, and Canada! How should we reply?!"

"The peanut butter released at London city general stores yesterday sold out completely in less than an hour! Citizens are protesting and making a fuss!"

"Ha, a person even came out from the House of Commons! A request if we can't separately set aside ten boxes of peanut butter every month to Westminster (*Palace of Westminster, British Parliament)...!"

"The peanuts imported from America seem absolutely unable to keep up with production! If we don't double the import volume there will be problems next month right away...!"

Wow, are these people okay?

I should have taken a photo of Mr. Pitton's blank expression at this time. Even though he's a veteran factory owner who already has a large flour mill and bakery factory, he completely lost his mind at the runaway order volume. Saliva was flowing from his open mouth?

In fact, making one bottle of peanut butter was a simple process that only involved ingredient classification, peanut input, peanut roasting, product production, packaging, and delivery. So we only made a bit of a fuss in the preparation process, and it didn't take particularly long until the actual product release. From the start outstanding veterans even by the standards of this era prepared, so it was strange for problems to break out. We were confident of success and even secured sufficient volume and entered the market.

Of course in that process there was a commotion of increasing the size of the existing electric grinder for mass production or whatever, but I don't know the technical part at all so pass. Ah, the conveyor system success case of Ford automobiles came to mind and I slightly mentioned it, and thanks to that we somehow introduced an automation system and reduced a lot of labor. Mr. Royce is such a smart person so he must have done well on his own.

The problem is the peanut butter demand volume that far exceeds expectations.

At some moment Mr. Henry and Mr. Pitton also confident of great success borrowed money from Barclays Bank and built an additional factory next door, and even increased the initially planned production lines more than double, but couldn't catch up with demand.

We negotiated with the company that originally imported peanuts and exclusively bought one warehouse, and from the next production we poured peanuts directly brought from America, but still ingredients are lacking.

If the sales volume is this level soon every British household will own one bottle of peanut butter. In fact it became like this not only word of mouth but also largely because I excessively intervened in the initial commercial release process.

Normally the average price of high-end jam at general stores is 2 shillings, the price of one bottle of Golden Syrup about 1 shilling. Mr. Henry and Mr. Teple wanted to premiumize this due to peanut import price issues and sell at 3 shillings, but I insisted it absolutely has to be matched similarly to Golden Syrup.

Anyway the raw materials occupy most of the price, and the lower the import price the more all that is pure profit, so there was nothing to lose. So the finally decided price was 1.3 shillings. About 0.17 shillings profit per bottle, which was a tremendous bargain by the standards of this era.

At that time because I knew the fact that Marmite would soon appear in British society, I thought that for peanut butter to preempt that place I had to quickly build recognition with a thin profit high volume strategy.

Moreover I was also a person who once ate Golden Syrup spread on tasteless rye bread, so I absolutely couldn't sell my peanut butter expensively. Poor laborers also have to eat delicious things and live!

Looking back, my thought of slightly showing the taste of modern marketing when first starting sales also seems to have been a problem.

"What? Let's give prizes by lottery to people who bought peanut butter?"

"Yes, by making a special marking on the inside of the bottle cap, the person who receives that brings it to a nearby general store and gives a predetermined prize prepared in advance. If we carry that content small on the 4th or 5th page of the newspaper there will also be an advertising effect."

"Hmm... Is that so? If young Jean says so it must be so. Well if it's for a short time it will be fine."

Promotion marketing. It's a common thing in modern times, but in early 20th-century Britain it was a publicity method almost not found. I explained using lottery as an example, and because lottery was already not an unfamiliar concept in Britain it was easily accepted.

There was a history of the British government issuing a National Lottery in the early 16th century Age of Discovery to raise funds to build ships and ports, so everyone understood right away.

And two days before peanut butter was released, I had the newspaper sellers scatter flyers all over London. It's a health food and delicious, as cheap as Golden Syrup, and there's even a small prize!

Moreover adding the comment that even the British upper class ate it and highly praised it�here I slightly borrowed the Earl of Derby's name�on the release day due to citizens lining up it sold out completely in just a few hours, and word of mouth spread in an instant.

In the end it came to this situation. Business paralysis due to order surge!

�Jean! Jean-Paul Durand! Where are you going! Please, he-help me a bit!�

"Yikes! Goodbye!"

When Mr. Pitton who had lost his soul discovered me and shouted, I quickly ran the 36 stratagems of fleeing. Management is not my specialty! I'm just an ordinary chef! More than that I hate getting involved in annoying matters more!

Ring ring.

The bicycle I brought was a big help in the escape. This is one I've been riding since my newspaper seller days, and because of attachment I'm continuing to repair and use it. Anyway,

�Well... It's still early so it will calm down in about a month?�

I wanted to believe that. The fact that the popularity of Chicken and Chips hasn't cooled even after nearly half a year... Honestly I wanted to turn a blind eye.

When things go too well like this, I often imagine that if an incident breaks out it would rather make my heart comfortable.

A month later, until Mr. Pitton couldn't handle the increased workload and fainted, I still passed it thinking it could be so.

I was worried what if someone eats peanut butter and has a severe allergic reaction, but fortunately there have been no such reports yet.

The last thing that came to mind was the meaningful statement Mr. Holmes left a few months ago. But the usual 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' still hasn't appeared in the newspaper even after three months, and even if my peanut butter is mentioned in a new Holmes series it's already exploding in popularity so there's nothing more to change.

So this time I thought everything would successfully conclude without any trouble... But as expected, in the end an incident broke out.

###

I was walking the bustling London streets as usual for a stroll. Eavesdropping on the citizens praising peanut butter while passing the road made my mood naturally good.

It's cheap and delicious, much better than that 'dirty' Golden Syrup!

Carriage drivers, market laborers, port stevedores, even Chinese and black laborers passing by! All praise!

Like that thoroughly enjoying people's reactions and wandering the streets and about to return to the restaurant... I felt a strange d�j� vu as if I've experienced it once somewhere.

"No... Really again? Are they sharing a template somewhere?"

Why is London's public order like this?

Seeing the several figures gradually tightening around me, I just raised both hands comfortably as if resigned.

Please don't put that smelly sack on me.

Fortunately this time it wasn't put on. Is that fortunate?