The Economics of Everyday Things
00:13:04 · Zachary Crockett, Jennifer Lee
[00:13:04] S2: So it's safe to eat. Oh, definitely. Yeah. A fan cools the cookie, and a different machine seals it in a wrapper with air. This whole process happens in a few seconds. And as you stand there, you see an unrelenting stream of wrapped cookies flowing down the line. They're packed 350 apiece into cardboard boxes and loaded up to be distributed all over the country. Wonton Food sells some of its fortune cookies white label to big national chains who put their own logos on the packaging, but most of its products are sold under its own brand, Golden Bowl. You might see the name on the fortune cookies at your local family run Chinese restaurant. Fortune cookies are usually free to us, the diners. Restaurants take on the cost. And given the tight profit margins in the restaurant business, typically three to 5%, Wonton Food faces a lot of price sensitivity from its customers. They're only willing to spend so much on something they have to give away. On its website, Wonton Food sells boxes of 350 vanilla fortune cookies for $12.85 each, a little less than 4¢ per cookie. But for larger deals that go through a food distributor, the wholesale price is likely much lower. Jennifer Lee, the author of The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, says in some cases, fortune cookies may even be a loss leader. [00:14:37] S4: You have these companies, you know, whether or not they make wonton skins or they make noodles and what you're selling to the Chinese restaurants anyway. Once you have those sales accounts, it is not that expensive to then upsell and add additional products.
00:14:37 · Jennifer Lee, Zachary Crockett
[00:14:37] S4: You have these companies, you know, whether or not they make wonton skins or they make noodles and what you're selling to the Chinese restaurants anyway. Once you have those sales accounts, it is not that expensive to then upsell and add additional products. [00:14:58] S2: One reason for the small margins is that fortune cookies are surprisingly labor intensive. You can automate the cookie baking process all you want, but the real product is that little slip of paper inside of it. And writing a good fortune is a process that cannot be rushed. [00:15:20] S4: Americans, if they don't like their fortune, they complain to the restaurant. The restaurant complains to the distributor. So there are all these pressures to only have happy at a dime fortunes because otherwise, there's a bad tip at the end. [00:15:37] S2: Decades ago, fortune cookie writers figured out that many traditional Chinese sayings didn't necessarily translate well for an American audience. [00:15:46] S4: The Chinese sensibility and American sensibility do not always line up. So even if you put things that Chinese people said into the cookies, I don't know an American audience would like them. So for example, the American perspective, the squeaky wheel gets to Greece. Speak up. Right? Call attention to your needs. Chinese, which means the bird whose head sticks out gets shot. And so very different attitude. [00:16:15] S2: When fortune cookies first became widely popular in the nineteen fifties, many writers turned to the Chinese philosopher Confucius, and they took some liberties with his work.
00:16:15 · Zachary Crockett, Jennifer Lee, Norman Wong
[00:16:15] S2: When fortune cookies first became widely popular in the nineteen fifties, many writers turned to the Chinese philosopher Confucius, and they took some liberties with his work. [00:16:26] S4: Confucius started saying things that he never said. Americans just thought he was, like, a wise man, and therefore Confucius said. [00:16:34] S2: Today's fortunes have evolved, but the fundamentals of the message are still the same. [00:16:40] S3: Has to have a positive message. This is what comes at the end of the meal. Right? So it's something that has to give customers a little bit of joy so that they'll be encouraged to come back to the Chinese restaurant. There's the typical category, which is the predictive type. You know, like, something's gonna happen to you in the future. There's humorous ones. There's one that are based on ancient Chinese philosophy. There's ones that are encouraging you, words of inspiration. [00:17:05] S2: My favorite fortune I ever got, all it said was someone is watching you from afar. [00:17:11] S3: Oh, yeah. Hopefully, that keeps you on the straight and narrow. [00:17:15] S2: Wonton Food has employed a few chief fortune writers over the years. They sift through quote books, philosophical texts, and social media to find short and snappy fortunes that fit the bill.
00:17:15 · Zachary Crockett, Norman Wong
[00:17:15] S2: Wonton Food has employed a few chief fortune writers over the years. They sift through quote books, philosophical texts, and social media to find short and snappy fortunes that fit the bill. [00:17:29] S3: Let me see. Where is the list here? Ah, here we go. Trust in your dreams. They hold your potential. Embrace your destiny and let go of fear and doubt. No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible. Even the greatest of whales is helpless in the middle of a desert. [00:17:53] S2: Wonton Food now has a database of more than 10,000 fortunes, which it rotates in and out of circulation. [00:18:01] S3: We make millions of cookies a day, and, you know, we don't want a situation where you get the same message. We're constantly reviewing the database of fortune messages to make sure that it's something fresh. [00:18:12] S2: At times, the writers at Wonton Food have gotten a little too experimental. In the mid-2000s, they wrote a series of more ominous fortunes. Diners across the country were getting notes like, Today is a disastrous day, or There might be a crisis looming. That one, by the way, debuted a few months before the Great Recession. [00:18:34] S3: There's cultural mores that evolve over time in our society. So whatever's going on in the zeitgeist, we have to make sure that cookies reflect that.
00:18:34 · Norman Wong, Zachary Crockett
[00:18:34] S3: There's cultural mores that evolve over time in our society. So whatever's going on in the zeitgeist, we have to make sure that cookies reflect that. [00:18:45] S2: Just as consequential is what's on the back of a fortune. If you flip one over, you'll often find a set of six lucky numbers. Wonton Food was the first company to do this. Huang says many people use those numbers to enter the lottery, and it's not uncommon for them to strike it big. [00:19:05] S3: Oh, yeah. That happens, like, every month. We can't even keep track of it. [00:19:08] S2: In 2005, 110 people all over the country won $19,000,000 in the Powerball lottery by using the lucky numbers on the back of a wonton food fortune cookie. Wong says the company got a visit from skeptical lottery officials. [00:19:25] S3: They came here, interviewed us. Initially, they thought what was going on here. Yeah. And then once they reviewed our process, they realized it was just the magic of fortune cookies. [00:19:35] S2: In recent years, Wang has tried to introduce the magic of fortune cookies to other countries. As Chinese immigrants have spread around the world, so too have Chinese restaurants, and by proxy, the international demand for fortune cookies. You can now find them in Europe, South America, Africa, and Australia. But one place that has resisted the fortune cookie is China. In the nineties, Wonton Food tried to introduce fortune cookies there, but they abandoned the project due to lack of interest. The cookies, as it turns out, were just too American.
00:19:35 · Zachary Crockett, Jennifer Lee
[00:19:35] S2: In recent years, Wang has tried to introduce the magic of fortune cookies to other countries. As Chinese immigrants have spread around the world, so too have Chinese restaurants, and by proxy, the international demand for fortune cookies. You can now find them in Europe, South America, Africa, and Australia. But one place that has resisted the fortune cookie is China. In the nineties, Wonton Food tried to introduce fortune cookies there, but they abandoned the project due to lack of interest. The cookies, as it turns out, were just too American. [00:20:13] S4: Did we ever bring a whole bag of fortune cookies to China and you just give them to people? They'll pop them in their mouth and they're like, woah. Woah. What's this? Americans are so strange. Like, why are they putting pieces of paper in their food? [00:20:26] S2: For Jennifer Lee, the answer to that question is clear. [00:20:30] S4: It's a non religious, non woo woo way to believe that there's a larger cosmic framework. You can get a fortune, and it feels like a personal message even though in reality, that fortune was probably printed 10,000 times in the factory. But it feels like it's a custom message from the cosmos to you delivered in a little cute package. There's something about that whole ritual that makes you believe there's a pattern to the madness of the universe. [00:21:06] S2: Aunt Norman Wong is happy to keep the tradition alive.