WEBVTT

NOTE 15. Meet My Benefactor

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Meet my benefactor.

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By pure luck, I happened to sit down next to a man last week, who has been my benefactor

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for my entire life and the large part of his, and yet we had never met.

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In fact, though he has been serving me faithfully for three decades, looking after my well-being

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and trying to improve my standard of living, he didn't even know my name.

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Actually, he still doesn't, because it is slightly odd to get too personal with the

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The guy in the next seat on a plane, we all know this.

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And yet, I did tell him of my deep gratitude for all he has done.

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This man is in charge of marketing for one of six manufacturing plants in North America

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that makes oriented polypropylene for packaging materials.

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This substance is called OPP for short.

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He goes around to companies that make stuff like drinks and candies and other products

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and explains to them the advantages of OPP, about which more in a bit.

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This man is on the road constantly and has a stack of airline reward cards to prove it.

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He is like the George Clooney character in the movie Up in the Air, a seasoned traveler

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married to his work.

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His work is to be the eyes and ears of the company as it deals with its product purchasers.

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His life is lived in the B2B, the business to business transactions that are invisible

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to the consuming public.

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His vocabulary is industry specific, filled with neologisms that no one outside of the

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packaging world could understand.

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He can tell you the chemical properties of a bag from five feet away.

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He can explain why a bag is easier to tear one way and harder the other.

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He knows the history, the process, the competition, plus the name of every large-scale bag purchasing

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manager in North America, and he is happy to talk all about it.

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What is his function?

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He is the man who makes the inventions and the productions part of our lives.

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Without the person on the front lines actually selling the products, everything that went

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into the invention and production is pointless.

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He is the interface between the raw materials and the final product.

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The man who has to have all the answers that link the great chain of the structure of production

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from first to last.

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As for his product, you and I both know OPP well, though we probably don't know what

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it is called.

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It is the stuff that is used to make potato chip bags.

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It is the reason that the contents stay crisp no matter what the humidity outside.

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You can dip the bag in water, and it changes nothing.

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The air can be hot or cold, and still, the chips inside are unchanged.

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The same material wraps candy like Snickers, and the effect is the same.

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It is also the reason that these bags can be so beautiful.

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OPP loves printing.

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It is a perfect template for designers.

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The results never rub off on your fingers, nor does the printing fade in the sun.

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It can accept even the most subtle gradations in color.

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You could print a work of Michelangelo on OPP and hang it in a museum.

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It turns out that potatoes fried in oil are super vulnerable to becoming rancid.

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Maybe you thought it was chemical preservatives, up with those too, that prevented this.

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That is part of the answer, but not the whole answer.

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The real reason is OPP.

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This is what stops the degenerative process.

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This is not a problem for other fried items like pork rinds, which is why they often come

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in see-through bags.

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OPP is not see-through, and that is good.

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The product inside doesn't like the light.

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OPP keeps that out too.

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OPP has other nice features.

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It has a very low dead-fold capacity, which is why, when you wad up a potato chip bag,

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it bounces right back to its original shape.

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This is to protect the contents inside.

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That's why in the 1960s, bags of potato chips came with crumbled contents, but today they

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are mostly intact and perfect.

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You thought it was just because it was filled with air?

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Well, ask yourself why the air doesn't escape.

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The answer again, OPP, it seals perfectly.

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This stuff is impenetrable.

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And get this, this is a petroleum product, that's right, it is made of a material derived

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from oil.

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So the price of the stuff fluctuates according to the price of oil.

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When the price of oil goes up, your chips become more expensive, due mainly to the packaging,

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which is also why the OPP industry is firmly attached to the idea of liberalizing the regulations

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on the discovery and refining of oil.

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My Benefactor Marketing Manager is very interested in this.

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Now, all of this is pretty cool and wonderful, but let's get down to the core rationale

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here.

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What is all the fuss about?

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Why was OPP invented?

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And why is it marketed?

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And why is it used so much around the world?

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Why does this man spend his life on the road and follow every bit of industry news?

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What is the point of all of this?

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It is for one reason, my well-being, yours too.

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It is to please us and make our lives that much better.

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It is for the consumer that the producer produces and it is for the consumer that everyone in

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all stages of production strives to make an ever better product.

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It all comes down to that bag of chips you pick up with your submarine sandwich.

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This is why millions of people in the OPP industry around the world dance the dance.

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It is why the potatoes are grown, chopped, fried, bagged and shipped to millions and

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millions of places.

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The heck of it is that these people get no credit, no bag of chips says, this bag is

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made by Joe's OPP factory.

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No, they are anonymous benefactors of society.

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Hardly anyone thinks of them.

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And yet, if you bought a bag of chips that was full of rancid crumbs, you would know

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the difference.

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You would be annoyed at the store that sold them, at the company that made them, and maybe

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even at the economic system that allows people to profit from selling bad stuff.

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Private OPP producers prevent this from happening millions and millions of times per day.

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You and I are running this show and we don't even know it.

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The producers of these bags are serving us slavishly every day and we don't know or

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care.

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And somehow it all happens without a central planner, without government mandates, and

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without state-owned factories or smart people at the top directing the process from beginning

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to end.

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All that needs to take place to bring about this complex and brilliant system is that

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we have to have a desire, a desire for a good potato chip.

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The rest happens on its own, a self-managing system that responds to the tiniest of signals.

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So I would like to send a message to my benefactor who has devoted his life to explaining to

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food producers the merits of OPP.

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My message is, thank you.

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I suspect that I might be the first consumer who has ever said so, but in my ideal world,

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billions of people would be giving thanks to you and everyone else like you.

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You are all servants of the great cause of making the world a better place to live.