Chapter 155: It’s Time (1)  

“One more? Are you talking about it being healthy?”

Lee Soo Bong was trying his best to find the answer.

Park Sung Joon looked as if he had given up though. He didn’t look as if he was even trying to find the answer. It was as if he was saying that all he needed to do was continue his research on stem cells.

I guess I should give the answer. We didn’t gather together to play a guessing game.

“No matter how delicious and healthy our food is, people will not buy it if they feel repulsed by it.”

“Repulsed?”

“It is definitely possible. This is not real meat made in nature. It is pretty much artificial meat.”

“That is indeed a bit repulsive to hear.”

Lee Soo Bong started to frown. Artificial meat sounds like it was created in a lab and would do some weird things to your body.

But it was kind of true. Depending on how you described it, the ingredients for this item are, ‘artificial meat.’

That is what most people are going to think. No matter how we package it nicely, the term, ‘artificial meat,’ will be stuck to it as soon as the item becomes popular.

Why?

“We will have many enemies as soon as this item becomes a hit. There will be a lot of people who suffer losses because of this item. They will do whatever they can to lower the image and value of this item. The best way to do that would be to use the term, ‘artificial meat,’ to drive people away.”

It was an obvious future if you thought about it deeply.

There’s no way Lee Soo Bong wouldn’t understand the situation when I’m describing it in so much detail.

Lee Soo Bong let out a frustrated groan.

“Mm......”

Now that I pointed out the main issue, it is time that I provide the solution.

“We just need to make something negative, such as being artificial meat, become attached to the product. We need to make it so that the majority will not feel that way, even if someone tries to shift the perspective.”

“What can we do? Is there a method?”

“It is simple. We just don’t make it popular.”

“What do you mean?”

It did not make logical sense. You needed to sell a lot to make a lot of money, and you needed it to be popular in order to do that.

However, there was a different approach if you looked at it from another direction.

“How much do you think one portion of tteok-galbi made from the highest-grade hanwoo beef costs? Let’s say you are buying it from the fanciest restaurants.”

“Then whatever they want to charge. Anybody who goes there will have money, so they won’t say it is expensive even if they charged 50,000 won.”

“Then I plan on making the cost of our tteok-galbi more than 50,000 won per portion.”

Lee Soo Bong and Park Sung Joon quietly looked at me. They seemed to understand what I was thinking.

“Why do you think caviar or shark fin are expensive? Why do you think mandarin fish or truffles are expensive? Is it because they taste better than other food?”

“Because it is precious.”

The answer came right away this time.

He was correct. Lee Soo Bong finally understood the point I was trying to make.

“That is correct. There is not much supply of them available, thus making only a few people able to eat it. That is why this mentality of only special people get to eat these special foods was created. If oyster mushrooms or tofu became extremely difficult to find for some reason, they will also become precious and expensive. Am I right?”

Lee Soo Bong and Park Sung Joon silently nodded.

“We will make our product into such an item.”

We need to produce as little as possible in order to do that. We will make it so that people believe it is difficult to make and impossible to mass produce, making only a few people able to enjoy it.

The general population will find out about it through word of mouth.

Then the image that is created afterward will be difficult to destroy. We can create the market we want for it afterward by increasing the production rate.

The investment amount I came up with after thinking about that was 500 billion won.

It will probably cost less than that.

However, you never know what will happen when you are doing business. You always need extra money in order to handle any problems that may arise.

“It sounds like you have thought a lot about it.”

Lee Soo Bong nodded his head.

However, Park Sung Joon still did not seem to care.

“I do not know much about it. I will leave the marketing to you. I will just focus more on the stem cell research.”

There were a few other things I had thought about.

However, that was something I couldn’t start right away without getting too far ahead of myself.

Most importantly, it was something I had to do, not something the two of them had to do.

“I understand. I will take responsibility to handle these. Please just pay attention to keeping things a secret.”

Both Lee Soo Bong and Park Sung Joon nodded their heads again.