I, TruJoyBack in 2018, between a job and business school, I took a trip to Christmas Island, a remote island about 1,200 miles south of Hawaii. For three weeks, I lived in thatched hut on the beach and spent every waking minute wading through knee deep water chasing Bonefish, Triggerfish and the almighty Giant Trevally. The fishing surpassed all expectations. I did not however expect to spend an evening with an economics professor and a Rhodes Scholar who taught me more in one evening, over a bottle of coconut wine, than I learned in four years of college. The tiki hut lecture was centered around the professor’s favorite essay: I, Pencil by Leonard E. Read. I encourage you to read Read’s original, but I have rewritten this obscure, yet profound, essay for you here in the form of I, TruJoy. My purpose is twofold – one, to teach you a little about how TruJoy Yogurt is made and two, to unravel to you the true miracle of our modern economy. Before you read, I’d like to acknowledge that the idea to tell the story of a modern miracle through the lens of an inanimate object is not my original concept as I, TruJoy closely mimics Read’s original essay. But I do include my own philosophical twist, and I can confirm that TruJoy’s creation, just like any other products, is truly unique! Of the memories I have from living like Jimmy Buffet for three weeks, what I learned one evening under a thatched hut in the south pacific has had the most lasting impact on me and my understanding of how the world really works. It’s only too ironic that I had to travel to the most remote corner of the world and live in the most primitive way to be taught such a lesson! Hopefully you can garner something from and enjoy my rendition: I, TruJoy I am a pint of Frozen Greek Yogurt – a simple, delicious and nutritious treat for anyone to enjoy. Satiating you with wholesome nutrition and joy is my vocation, it’s all I do! You may wonder why the story of how I came to be is worth telling for so simple I may seem. But I am a mystery, my very existence a true wonder! Though you appreciate me when you eat me, there is no way you fathom the miracles I symbolize! Please, forgive me, my arrogance and pride, but I, TruJoy, though simple I may seem am worthy of your wonderous awe. Here I will try to explain and demystify the miracles I symbolize, for I have a profound lesson to teach! Pick me up and look me over. What do you see? A paper pint, a frozen delight! Read my ingredients: Greek Yogurt, Milk, Cream, Cane Sugar, Vanilla Extract, Guar & Carob Bean Gum. Taste me now, delicious right? So straightforward I seem, my story you couldn’t dream! Despite my humble appearance, not a single man alone, not even the one who dreamed me up, possesses the knowledge, skills or capacity to deliver me to you. How can it be that in a short year and a half over 100,000 just like me have been made and enjoyed? Here I reveal my colorful story as I seek to demystify the odds I defy! It all begins in the lush pastures of California’s central valley where the happy cows graze. Every morning, they are milked, and the milk is hauled by truck to a processing facility where it begins its journey through a maze of stainless-steel pipes. The milk flows through the homogenizer and then through the pasteurizer. While it’s still warm, it is cultured in giant vats with living organisms whose Latin names I lack the sophistication to pronounce! After fermentation is complete my ingredients – Sugar, Milk, Cream, Guar & Locust Bean Gum - are blended in. Each of which came from the ground and requires a special set of tools, knowledge and experience to harvest! Now complete, my dairy mix navigates another series of pipes and is pumped into tanks Texas bound! On he far side of the world, Vanilla Beans are plucked from vines and spread to dry under the searing Madagascan sun. The dried bean pods are sorted and graded – only the finest are selected and set sail for the US of A! Once they clear customs, the pods begin their overland journey to Missouri. The vanilla bean pods are ground into a powder which is poured into percolation tanks where it will rest for 96 hours while the flavors are gently extracted. With flavor and purity exact, behold my extract! Ingredients for flavors, which maybe you favor, all have their own story as well! With Strawberries from Oregon, Peanuts from Georgia, Coffee from Brazil and Granola from Michigan, each of my counterparts with their different parts rely on their own chain of independent producers. Imagine all the farmers, pickers, processors, packers and truckers, and their unique craft to make each of these ingredients so divinely delicious! Without such breadth you’d have so little choice, and though I wish you’d pick me, your choice is your voice! The container holding me together hails from the fabulous Las Vegas. In the city of sin, virgin pulp is blended with 35% post-consumer recycled fibers and pressed into sheets. The paper is fed through a printing press where custom plates give me my beautiful colors. Once colored, glossed and cut the paper is rolled and glued, my final shape is formed! The printing press has come a long way since Johannes Gutenberg’s 1440 original – think of the engineers, machinists, programmers who all came together to assemble this space age machine that presses such perfect pints with the utmost of precision! Each of these skills and the resources required are so vastly different than those for my ingredients with their agrarian roots. Time is of the essence now as all of my ingredients arrive in Dallas to be flavored, frozen and packaged – everything is fresh and must quickly be frozen! Again, my dairy is pumped into shiny steel tanks and Vanilla Extract is gently folded in. My mix is pumped through the continuous freezer, where in just a few short minutes it turns from liquid to solid! With exacting precision, the filler will fill each pint which will ride a carousel where it sealed for protection and topped with a lid. I, TruJoy am now ready for you! But before I can begin my final journey, I am stuffed into a case of eight and banished to the blast freezer where I endure -30o F temperatures! My case is then stacked on a pallet with 149 more and sent to the warehouse where I patiently wait. In the wee hours of the morning, I’ll arrive at a dock and be checked by receiving. With my temperature taken, and my rank filed, I am now inventory and belong to the store. One of 50,000 different items, no one of which has the same story to tell! I’ll be set in a merchandising freezer and carefully rotated so that you can read my name when you pass by. Patiently I’ll wait one last time and hope that I, TruJoy will catch your eye! So many people with such breadth of knowledge all play an equally important role in my making. If the cows went home, the vanilla orchids died or the printing press ran dry, a literal meltdown would occur, and I wouldn’t be here to tell you this tale! So few of the people responsible for my creation will ever meet, yet alone know one another, and they are often only vaguely even aware of the others’ existence. From beginning to end, my ingredients and I trade freely from one to another. No force is necessary, only trust and trade so I can be made! What force could it be that drives all the independent parties to work separately but towards the same common goal? There is an innate human desire to do good, to support and to serve one another. Every man knows that he alone lacks the skill and strength to support himself, let alone carry the world on his shoulders. Instead, he creates what he can and freely trades the fruits of his labor with others for the fruits of theirs. Could there be an invisible hand orchestrating this unlikely series of events that lead to my birth? Not in a million years or a million simulations could this wondrous serious of events have occurred. It must be the invisible hand, such a mystical energy guiding without force to organize so many pieces to make me for you! And stranger still, most of my makers won’t ever know that I exist. The characters in the story I’ve told specialize in such a small, yet significant, part of my making. But seldom do they know where it will go! The dairyman may wonder where his milk will end, but he will never know if it became stinky cheese or me, TruJoy! How does something like me come to be? Do you recall even asking for me? Look around you now, do you recall asking for any of the things you see? Everything around you was once a mere idea, a dream, somebody’s vision. With undaunted courage and an entrepreneurial spirit, somebody realized that dream. A daring venture was underwritten, a marvelous risk was taken to bring something of value to you. You never had to ask, like magic it appeared and that is the true miracle of which I speak!
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