Contributed by Gene Kelly
I have a plan. I am a businessman with international experience. As an ardent capitalist, it pleases me to provide humanity with goods and services. Other people have gainful employment through my efforts, and enjoy dignity from economic independence. With pleasure, I now unfold my plan; and in the process, invite you, my reader, to contribute and profit by way of capital formation. This proposal is an Irish love speech brochure.
It is predictable that success will result from recognizing an underserved market. In this plan, I have done exactly that. The goal to be achieved is to acquaint my future customers with the nature of my product, and they will surely become steady patrons of my business. Wealth generation will result.
Another element of succeeding in business is to recognize civic obligations and cultural persuasions, in terms of diversity of tastes. This plan does exactly that, by broadening the customer’s exposure to culinary variety. Diversity is hand-in-glove with sensitivity.
Fast food franchises are already present in Saudi Arabia. After having investigated the present market on the street level, in the City of Jeddah, the focal point of pilgrim transportation into Mecca, I realized there were no bacon burgers for sale anywhere; just as there are no coexist bumper stickers. Other corporations have completely missed the opportunity to sell pork to Arabs.
In order to build market demand, my prospective customers would need exposure to the product in question. The best time to introduce them to pork would be during their pilgrimage to Mecca. Before actually constructing franchise facilities, I would import live on the hoof examples, for the hungry third-world pilgrims to consider.
In order to get the jump on the competition, it might be best to go low-profile and imitate the actions of the Royal Saudi Arabian Air Force at their Jeddah facility. They engage in shipping hard liquor and guns into the country via their turbo prop transports, in a surreptitious manner. I could follow their example and ship the largest, most impressive of American Midwestern boars into Mecca during the Hajj. Arab air crews set down in the dessert to rendezvous with trucks, to complete their bootlegging, gun running cycle.
I could also ship live pigs into Mecca, by caging them in the cargo hold of a tactical transport, and landing shortly before daybreak, just out of hearing range of Mecca. By depriving the swine of food and water, for a period that would not damage their health leading up to their release, and giving them stimulants, they would have additional motivation to head for a food source: the festivities in Mecca. What a sure means of promotional exposure to dietary variation: hungry, jacked-up boars mixed in amongst the pilgrims. Porkchops and sausage could be quickly processed, and my future customers would be primed for my business venture.
Since the pilgrims and their Arab hosts are unfamiliar with the taste, sight and conduct of pigs, I would get their full, undivided attention by providing them with the biggest, most rambunctious examples of the species. It wouldn’t do to be subtle. A full cargo load of the biggest boars that the Midwestern United States could produce, arriving on the streets of Mecca at the height of the Hajj, should be just the formula for getting my business venture launched. After the adjustment to the initial exposure subsided, I could approach the Saudi Arabian government and negotiate the development of a pork-packing plant.
Given the masses of pilgrims that will be present for the rituals, there are bound to be some hungry individuals that will take an interest in porkchops, sausage and of course, my bacon burgers. Diversifying their tastes is the first step. Surely, behind those burkhas is curiosity in a portion of the population about Crisco and porky pig recipes. All it would take would be for a few curious individuals to get started.
After the initial success of my bacon burger, perhaps I could expand and offer a pork smorgasbord deli chain. With Arab women getting interested in driver’s licenses, my market strategy could be enormously successful, as a major contribution to the Hajj celebration. Muslims would be so grateful to me for bringing them up to speed with the rest of the world’s diet. It could be an aid to their global assimilation. When they get fed-up with gun fighting in the dessert and migrate, they find there are no camel or goat burgers where they move to. It is part of my aforementioned civic duty to enhance cultural sensitivity on their behalf.
This venture is sure to be a success. Perhaps, I will utilize a coupon redemption program for Charles Martel’s Bacon Burgers, to be redeemed in Mecca and Medina. And complimentary coexist bumper stickers might be added.
Postscript: Charles Martel, aka The Hammer, was the Frankish warlord that defeated the Moors at the Battle of Tours in Central France, in 734 A.D. He drove Moe’s followers all the way back to Spain.
