They sat around the board room table in expensive suits, sipping lattes, waiting for the CEO's presentation. Their fake hair was made from the pelts of deceased animals, as were their shoes. It bothered few of them that their teeth-whitening procedures cost more than average families spend on food in a year.
Finally, the CEO arrived and touched the panel at the end of the long, mahogany table. A section of the wall containing comfortable, dark-bound books slid aside to reveal a screen, and the powerpoint presentation began.
"You all probably recognize this," he said without preamble. "It's a potato."
True to his words, a potato had appeared on the screen, revolving slowly, seemingly suspended in mid-air against a brilliant white background. A few irregular recessed areas were on its surface.
For a moment, the potato revolved and no one spoke. The only sound was the quiet "tch tch" of a guy at the end who was typing on his Blackberry.
"To this point, our efforts to maximize the efficiency of the potato have been hampered by its outer covering, commonly called the 'skin,'" said the CEO. "Every potato ever processed in our facilities has gone through a de-skinning operation, which some call 'peeling.'"
A hand shot up at the back of the room. The CEO nodded irritably at the questioner.
"What do we use the potatoes for?" asked the board member. "Are they a meat substitute of some sort?"
"No," the CEO said shortly. "We peel them, cut them up into pieces and fry them. This simple potato --" He stabbed at the image on the screen with a laser pointer. "This vegetable is the source of our french fries -- which actually are not French at all, or so our production executives tell me."
The board member nodded, comprehension dawning. A few grunts around the polished table indicated satisfaction that the source of the fries was not European.
"Watch," the CEO ordered and tapped a key. Suddenly, on the screen, the outer covering of the potato fell away, revealing its white, naked, inner core. "We lose 8.4 percent, on average, of every potato we process. Why? Because we peel them."
Shocked gasps sounded around the table. A new graphic, a chart, appeared on the screen. A figure at the bottom was flashing in red. Cries of despair rang out.
"That's right," the CEO said grimly. "Over the years, our company has lost $27.6 billion in potato peels."
A man at the far end fainted dead away. The CEO nodded to attendants who lined the walls, well away from the table, and two of them sprang forward and gently carried the unconscious board member out through the expansive, carved double doors. Other servants took advantage of the break to refresh the lattes of those who remained.
"What can we do?" a woman with an alligator-skin purse cried. "Can't we use something besides these potatoes?"
The CEO shook his head. "We've field-tested products using other sources that do not have to have their outer coverings removed. The french-fried celery sticks were the worst, even though we provided small packets of artificial peanut butter to make them edible," he said. "I'm afraid we are stuck with the potato."
Another board member, the vice-chairman, spoke up. "I'm sure these potatoes can be genetically modified not to produce these skins," she said. "Glenn, get Monsanto for me." An assistant pulled out a cell phone and tapped on its face.
"We already called them," said the CEO grimly. "They were already working on it. But not for us. For McDonalds."
The cell phone snapped shut. Dead silence reigned at the name of the most hated competitor.
"We have another solution," the CEO said. "Production says it can easily modify its processing facilities to cut the potatoes with the peels intact. There will be a small capital outlay, several hundred million, for reprogramming, but it can be done."
The vice chairman nodded. "That makes sense," she said. "Why did we ever start peeling them in the first place?"
The CEO shook his head. "That, I can't tell you," he said. "It was the 60s. It was a crazy time in the industry. McDonalds was peeling, Burger Chef was peeling, so we peeled. We did have the sense to save slicing costs by making our french fries bigger than those of the competition. Not to toot my own horn too much, but that was my idea, back when I was a regional vice president."
Sighs and murmurs of appreciation came from one and all.
The CEO continued. "Our problem is that the outer covering has a bitter taste. No one likes it except health nuts who believe the peel has more nutritional value than the core."
Even this short comment about nutritional value proved to be intensely boring. Four board member immediately fell asleep and were carried out, two of them snoring loudly. The rest drank furiously from their mugs, fighting drowsiness with caffeine.
"Marketing believes there may be a way to create demand for these unpeeled fried potatoes," the CEO said, hurrying on to recapture the interest of the board members. "They want to call it 'natural' or 'organic.' The genius of it is that the peel actually is part of the vegetable, not something we added chemically. We have our legal department talking to the FDA about whether we can use 'organic,' but 'natural' is a lock."
"Won't it still taste bad?" asked a man halfway down the table. Those around him frowned at him. He blushed.
"We've thought of that, too," said the CEO, smiling indulgently. "Research and Development has found that if you add enough salt, the bitterness is virtually undetectable. We're going to make that part of the marketing campaign by explaining the saltiness away, saying we're using sea salt."
Confused looks greeted this. "How is that better?" asked a board member tentatively.
The chief executive's smile grew. "It's not. It doesn't really matter, but it sounds exotic."
One woman started it, but the clapping was contagious, and soon all the board members were standing, pushing away the leather covered boardroom chairs. Some shook their fists in the air, whooping, while others pulled out their portable devices and issued orders to buy more of their stock.
The meeting ended in a unanimous, enthusiastic vote to proceed with the "natural" french fries salted from the sea. A few of the board members, as they were leaving, followed the tradition of leaping to touch the portrait of Dave that hung above the boardroom doors.
Ken York's column appears weekly in The Daily Record of Lebanon, Mo.
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