Shane Parrish

The playbook worked because there was no established competition to fight.

America was the opposite.

It was home to the original fast food chains and to large, well-funded frozen food companies that had been in business for decades.

For the first time, Harrison would be fighting for ground somebody else already had, and those companies were not going to roll over.

He had a phrase for entering foreign markets, drink the local wine, which means studying local conditions, hiring local talent, observing and listening before you prescribe an act.

It had worked brilliantly everywhere.

But there was a problem.

The United States wasn't one market.

It was a collection of regional markets, each with its own tastes, its own distribution networks, and its own entrenched players.

This would be trench warfare.

They started small and close to home.

In 1975, they bought a plant in Maine, then another the following year.

Both were within driving distance of Florenceville.

The big American producers were all out West, so McCain could take the Northeast, sell private label to supermarket chains and benefit from lower shipping costs.

By 1981, American sales had nearly doubled to 27 million.

That sounds decent until you look at the ratio.

It was less than 4% of global sales.

Eight years later, the US still accounted for just 17% of global revenue.

Harrison knew that he could not be the largest frozen French fry producer in the world without a real foothold in America.

The biggest single door in that market was McDonald's.