Netscape Enhanced

    

Portela: Gary, I think that's probably a fair statement to make.

North: And yet, not everybody does it?

Portela: No, there is a percent of activity as in any church group that is more active than others. It is like any other commitment, just how committed are you to this. I suspect the church membership as a whole, maybe 10 or 15% have some degree of food storage in their basements. I hope I'm wrong. I hope it's a lot higher than that, but I suspect not. I'm guessing at this figure, as the LDS Church doesn't publish this. I don't know if they even conduct surveys.

North: There is a reason I ask that. I want the listener to understand what we are really talking about in terms of the supply problem. You've got to understand that the LDS membership is around 4 million people here in the United States. Because of changing conditions they may decide, "Wait a minute. That was very good advice," and then they start working on getting a year supply of food. If the 10% to 20% of the members who have done something increased to 40% of the members who did what they have been expected and commanded to do, if this happened, literally hundreds of thousands of families would be hitting half a dozen companies to get delivery.

Portela: Too late!

North: Too late. That's why, quite frankly, I want to be at least a month, and preferably 6 months ahead of the President of the Mormon Church on this, because once he says it's serious, and once enough reports start circulating in the news saying it's a big problem, you are not going to be able to get in line.

Portela: Yes. You know, Gary, I suspect the President of the Mormon Church will probably never come out and make a statement like that. The Lord has warned and forewarned the people for years to do these things. They either do it, or they don't. You can't beg people to do things wisely. They have to take the initiative upon themselves. The people of the Church have been warned to prepare. They reiterate it all the time. But I suspect they will never come out and say, "This is it. You either get it in the next six months or it is too late." I don't think we will ever hear that from the brethren because this would induce mass panic. They don't ever want to do that. The foolish people are going to be foolish, the wise people will hopefully be wise.

North: I think a much larger percentage of LDS people will begin to make active preparation over the next 32 months than have ever done it in the past. I say this because the media will essentially reinforce what they have been told for decades.

When people finally get confirmation from a third party, or a whole series of third parties -- that what they have been told for 30 years is true -- it will be too late. These external motivators will persuade people they better get in line. They will say, "Wait, a minute, if I don't, I may not be able to get delivery," which is true. This will trigger the classic panic move into any thin market. When this happens, prices go up, supplies become strained to the limit, and the average guy, no matter what he does, is not going to be in a position to take the kind of action he needs to be prepared.

I have said it in the past and have said it repeatedly, "When in your stomach you get confirmation of what your head has been telling you, it is probably too late. Because it isn't just 'you' who've got that fear in the pit of your stomach; it's 100,000 or 200,000 other people." It doesn't have to be some large percentage of Americans. If you got, say, 60 million families or something of that nature in this country, you don't need a million of them to absolutely jam up the supply lines. If a million families decided tomorrow to take advantage of this offer, they couldn't take advantage of the offer because you couldn't handle the business.

Portela: Not only could our business and the few companies doing this not be able to handle all the business, but the food supplies aren't there! You try to go to a local elevator, outside Northern Utah, and maybe Southern Idaho where most of us do this, go to any country elevator anywhere else and they are going to look at you and say, "You want to get what?" They would think you were crazy. They don't have any concept of this business. They think the only way you can use wheat is to grind it up then buy it as bread in the grocery store. They don't make it available. It isn't available to the individual families out there. We have a very interesting little niche that we are doing. It is fascinating to do this.

North: But that niche can only supply a very tiny handful of people, comparatively.

Portela: In 1996 we proved that. I've got a lot of groups that were very, very upset at us as it took us so long to get their food products to them. And yes, a few of them probably canceled on us and went elsewhere and found some of their supplies elsewhere. Most of them probably had to pay a little bit more money. We take pride and believe we can supply these goods for the best price in this business.

How To Make Your Money Go Farther

North: Assume that a family had $1,000 to invest. How would you allocate that money?

Portela: Well, I would certainly get a foundation core of grains, something you can actually live on for a number of good months without paying for the real expensive food, such as the dehydrated food. You can get that later. A bucket of wheat only runs $9.00 or $10.00, and that's 45 pounds. It is estimated that an adult male only needs 300 lbs of wheat, 100 pounds of milk, 50 or 60 pounds of honey or sugar, and 10 pounds of salt, to maintain life. It doesn't cost that much. It doesn't take up that much space, either. If you have a family, you need to double or triple this, depending on the age of your kids. A thousand dollars is going to set you up easily.

Home Page URL: http://waltonfeed.com/

All contents copyright (C) 1997, Walton Feed Inc. All rights reserved.
Revised 5 Jan 00