What did the apotheosis of her rice pudding business look like to Yoland’s prospective mind? Was it of affinity with a Heinz 57 Varieties ketchup, or the inexplicable ubiquity of Nescafé Blend 43? A Pud #38 or other such number, #76 to tie-in to patriotic sympathies? Being an empire, were her aspirations to be bound to pre-defined territories? Such as within the US market, or was it to infuse its presence to foreign markets? Pud's reach extended only to the bounds of the fifty states, as well as the territory of Puerto Rico. The US military had held stock of Pud products in Guam, Okinawa and Diego Garcia. Further by extension, the hundreds of other foreign US military posts.
The Armed Forces were conducting her whims without her forethought or effort. Supplying the military to which it stocked its own supplies to its whims from there. Desserts were the breakfast of champions for those defending the Stars and Stripes. The creature comforts of home were a familiar fixture of US bastions. Whether in remote Afghanistan, or aboard a naval vessel on the high seas.
Yoland took great encouragement from the Pentagon doing her own bidding. She hastened to yearn for imperialism. The efforts on the Pentagon’s behalf to these aims, they were oblivious to. Still, they sufficed to meet Yoland’s aims.
Yet, the desire for imperialism, wherever it may emanate from, is seldom satiated. It wants more, as is human nature. Humans look to conquer, to usurp, to hold power, absolute above the other. Steadfast protection of the in-group toward the out-group. Extremist displays of courage, pleasure-seeking or self-aggrandisement.
Yoland desired to aggrandise her lot from her present station in life. A recognisable and ubiquitous example of human nature. The absence of a moderating force to such aims - recognition of ‘enough,’ or satiety of aims. As if the accretion of power served to speed up and increase the ability to accrete yet more power.
In absence of serious and sombre self-reflection, not on a mental trajectory to recognise an endpoint of her aspiration satiated. Sad for those who would find themselves in the way of her aspirant designs. Yoland’s beliefs were of a Manifest Destiny for her and hers of the American tradition. Turbocharged with latent instincts of dominance over the out-group. A beneficiary of millennia of the survival of the fittest, standing with two feet upon the Earth.
Yet to Yoland, where would buying in to the concept of Manifest Destiny end for her? If not outer space, where would Yoland delimit her imaginings of Manifest Destiny? Military bases bearing the Stars and Stripes on otherwise sovereign soil? Did Pud need to usurp the synonymity of Tang with American astronauts? Its viscosity in a tub suited to gravitational qualities of orbital life in a spacecraft.
Pud was a recognisable fixture on close to all supermarket shelves in the United States. Yoland harboured ambitions of similar ubiquity in all 193 countries of the world. Would one or two do, a half-dozen? Multinationals could lay claim to such an accolade.
The People’s Republic of China would always be a tough nut to crack. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea could all but be disregarded as a lost cause for such a venture. In its present state of total war, Syria did not seem as if it could be a market, unless humanitarian aid agencies could couple Pud among food supplies. Sub-Saharan African nations seemed in such poverty to be dubious prospects. She knew Somalia was a ‘failed state’ yet was not sure what that meant as it related to consumables.
In any regard, these examples would not be likely to bear financial fruits. Unilever seemed to have gone as close to finding its brands into the world's myriad corners. Supplying teabags to Gulf countries, or sachets of shampoo to Indian street vendors. The most apt markets for Yoland to follow was her fellow Yinzer company, Heinz. Where customers could find Heinz’s baked beans, Pud could follow and adapt.
She was oblivious to the unique cultural and linguistic necessities of going multinational. Only on a small scale could Pud export to foreign markets. The first obstacle had been product packaging in English. Also, an absence of certification of EU or halal standards. Plus, the nutritional information displayed was only to FDA standards. In likelihood, Pud would need to incorporate in most jurisdictions in which it ran. That made the EU’s 27-member state authority the most attractive in the immediate.
Profitability was also a factor for Yoland to calculate. An African state may hold millions in population, but there were set-up costs in each country. Then the price point at which an average citizen could afford a pack of Pud at market cost left little profit. What good was laying claim to being on the shelves in Kenya, or Equatorial Guinea, if running at a loss? Was it enough to consider the market may develop? If so, Pud would be there on the ground level when a middle class appeared.
What would be the first venture outward from American soil to bear the flag of Pud? To devour whichever local traditions of rice pudding may be native to such lands. Whether of the Caucasus, Levantine or Nordic varieties, or myriad more. A United Nations of rice pudding varieties, even of regional varieties within a nation. Most foreign preparations were home cooked, thus, Pud’s packaged form would be a unique offering on shelves in markets, with exceptions in European countries. The world was ripe for packaged rice pudding to supplant the homemade kind.
Was the key to multinational success a sound foundation in the home country? Was a better imperative to sow the seeds of Pud Inc. deeper into America’s foundations? Yoland was not sanguine about this possibility.
Market maturity limited Pud’s homegrown growth prospects. There always existed the prospect of whittling profit margins greater via reduced costs. Economising on its workforce by automation, championing the employment of casual workers. Profit-maximising had been the guiding light of Yoland’s efforts to this point in her career.
Yoland relished yet more profit eked out of operations over decades. Her ambitions now yearned for the need of the human spirit to expand its geographic reach. Laying claim to new markets, novel riches. In a market unbeknownst to its business landscape, Pud courted risk. Trial and error, coupled with loss, would be a feature of such a venture. But Yoland trusted the ultimate outcome would be to prevail.
Would the operations of manufacture still be within the US? Outsourced in a race to the bottom of ever lower wages, or a combination of the two? Her attentions away from American operations to develop new markets could come awry. How could she mitigate this eventuality?
Did one thing to lead another? Territory begat more territory, a lust to conquer and make one’s own ever more peoples and land. Yoland omitted to enquire of herself when enough may be enough.
She wished for empire. But Yoland had not prompted herself to answer why. If so, she could at best have attested to falling prey to bold and blind ambition, lust in purity for more. A rationalisation entwined with the concept of Manifest Destiny. A sense of place within the pantheon of great American mercantilists who made this land what it was to this day. Enterprising, innovating, a vanguard of progress.
From the Thirteen Colonies to the expansion of buying Louisiana from France. The annexation of the Republic of Texas leading to war with Mexico, resulting in yet more land captured from its southern neighbour. The sale of Alaska from Russia across the Bering Strait and annexation of Hawaii.
Also, in 1898, further territories developed thereafter in the Spanish-American War, including Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam.
Yet the tenor of American expansion took on a subtler form upon entering the 20th century, as Latin America experienced its powerful northern neighbour’s predations. After World War II, only the Soviets remained in contention for Great Power status.
Could the Founding Fathers have laid claim to foreseeing the eventual territorial bounds? Who could presage what the territorial borders would be a century hence from the present day? Empires waxed and waned, as if by Newtonian law.
China posed as an outlier of sorts. The 20th century had seen China’s fortunes fall to near-ubiquitous grinding poverty. The Middle Kingdom’s rise proved a rare example of an empire having fallen only to rise again.
Yoland willed Pud to extend its dominion beyond coterminous USA. It would call for a second act pushing beyond its relative stagnation in the land of its birth. It would call for a second wind akin to the prosperity