Nut/s

There are not many street vendors in this small city. Most of the evenings I have been to this place, I have seen this peanut seller. He carries a small bag of roasted peanuts. What make him special is his pestering ways of selling his merchandise. He importunes everyone to buy at least one small packet of peanut. I feel, he thinks everyone on the street have only one intention for coming here, that’s his peanuts. He is very lean and hungry look. Sympathy I have for his state often overshadowed by his manners.

Last night I bought a packet of peanut from him, it didn’t taste good. I think it was roasted a week ago or so. Fact that he still has an old stock of peanut is disturbing; he did not sell much last week. A small packet of fried peanut costs 2 rupee, that’s the only size he sells. His bag is very small; it can hardly contain 50 small packets. If he usually sells entire stock in a day then I would not have this old stock. He can’t sell 50 packets a day, that’s what it’s coming to.

Let me try to guess how much he earns by selling peanut. “Have you ever heard about success story of millionaire MR. Peanut”, mother asked her kids. She started narrating MR. Peanut’s story. She explained to kids how I got myself to peanut business and made my fortune. May be I would conclude roasted peanut business is profitable after I find how much the peanut seller makes, this could really inspire me to start new business. Years later this fictitious mother and kids would become real.

One kg of ground nut would cost around Rs 20, fuel for processing ground nut to roasted peanuts would cost around Rs 10 and packaging would cost around Rs 2. He can make 50 packets of peanuts from one kg, this is just my speculation in fact I am unaware how much a packet of roasted peanut weigh. He invested Rs 32 for producing 50 packets. Now comes the difficult part calculating operating and marketing costs. Business is not just math or peanut it’s a vision; if you have it you can sell anything, not necessarily you would make profit though. Labors nowadays are paid Rs 150 for 8 hours of work (minimum wages). Every hour peanut seller work on his peanut can be rated same as labor wage. Say he spend one hour to prepare peanuts and 8 hours to sell it then total human effort has a value of Rs 168.75. He runs his business in loss; loss percentage is increasing with every other word he said to customers. May be it’s his frustration that is transferred to his customers when he compels them. There should be someway to help these two groups, buyer and seller. Yes, Eat More Peanuts! That is how we can resolve this. I have decided to buy peanut every single time I see him. At sight of this guy, I will walk to him get one packet at least and won’t let him utter a word.