The Economics of Everyday Things
00:11:28 · S13, Zachary Crockett, Norman Wong
[00:11:28] S13: Shop gifts they'll love at Walmart. [00:11:36] S2: In the bowels of the Wonton Food Factory in New York City, you'll find the fortune cookie version of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. The fortune cookie process begins in a loading zone where 50 pound bags of dry ingredients are stacked up to the ceiling. The standard fortune cookie recipe is pretty simple. Flour, granulated sugar, vanilla flavoring, coloring agents, and water. These ingredients go into giant stainless steel mixers for around twenty minutes. [00:12:10] S3: That's actually one key part is mixing, making sure that the batter has the right combination of viscosity and strength. [00:12:18] S2: The mixed batter travels down a series of pipes that lead downstairs to the factory floor. Down here, a dozen rows of conveyor belts are in constant motion. The batter is squirted out from the pipes onto greased metal slabs as thin little pancakes. This process cooks the cakes. And while they're still hot and malleable, a proprietary piece of machinery cuts a single fortune off a giant roll of preprinted phrases. In one descending motion, it lays the fortune onto the pancake and folds it into the shape we all know. [00:12:56] S3: It's made out of food grade paper and ink because, you know, little kids might, you know [00:13:01] S2: People eat them. [00:13:02] S3: They might forget there's a little piece of paper in there.
00:13:02 · Norman Wong, Zachary Crockett
[00:13:02] S3: They might forget there's a little piece of paper in there. [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.
00:13:04 · 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.