I drove up to Robinvale over the Christmas break to check the...

I drove up to Robinvale over the Christmas break to check the company out and to see what over 30,000 acres of almond trees look like, if you ever get a chance it is an amazing sight. However, it became very apparent to me that SHV?s processing facility and Olam?s almond orchards were married to each other. There would need to be a major event of destructive capitalism to occur if Olam decided to walk away from SHV and go it alone. From what I could tell SHV was involved in every aspect of management and servicing of Olams orchards.

I just don?t see how Olam could, over night, set up a facility to manage, process and distribute their almonds.

Consider the annual pollination season, millions of bees are sourced from all over the country, the logistics and timing is incredible. SHV already has such a great working knowledge of these processes.

Surely Olarms first option is to push SHV down on price as far as they can go. When the margins get too low SHV will say no, we can?t go any lower. At that point Olam should look to acquire the company.

I guess what I?m trying to say is there has to be a market mechanism here which would not allow, what has been a substantial investment in processing facilities, to go to waste. There's just too much intellectual capital tired up in SHV. ???