Shane Parrish

The best potatoes for fries were grown out west in Idaho.

New Brunswick, where Harrison was from, was fine for seed potatoes, but building a frozen fry operation there, with that capital, with that expertise, thousands of miles from any big market, it made no sense.

The McCains heard him, and then they ignored him.

Their reasoning was practical.

They didn't have the money to start in Idaho, even if they wanted to.

The Americans had better infrastructure, sure, but they also had competition.

In Canada, whoever got there first could own the whole thing.

As they started telling people what they planned to do, most said they were crazy.

There's something worth pausing on here.

Most people hear resistance and slow down, but Harrison heard resistance and sped up, not out of stubbornness, but out of a belief that when everyone says something can't be done, and you can see clearly why it can, you found an opportunity that won't last forever.

So the four brothers pooled $100,000 in family money, most of it inherited after their father's death.

On May 24th, 1956, they incorporated McCain Foods Limited, but that wasn't nearly enough money.

They needed a factory, equipment, cold storage, and enough runway to survive until the revenue came in.

And this is where Harrison revealed another talent, one that would define his career as much as salesmanship, assembling capital from places other people didn't think to look.

He started at the Bank of Nova Scotia, the bank his father and grandfather had used and asked for $150,000 line of credit.

By luck, the bank's president was visiting the branch that day.

He'd spotted the McCain's and asked what they were after, disappeared for a few minutes, and came back with a yes.

His reasoning was, your grandfather did business with this bank, he owed the bank a lot of money, and when he owed it, he was broke.

But your father paid all the money back.

We never lost a nickel from any McCain.