The Møbius Donuts Corporation is the single largest food-related brand in the Star Trading Conglomerate. Their main product, the “Møbius Donut” is a Moebius strip-shaped donut meaning its mostly sugar-coated upper side flows around the whole donut. It isn’t necessarily a sweet pastry though. There are variations ranging from filled with fish and vegetables over meat and salty available. In total there are over 1042 different flavors that are sold from vending machines located in every city. The company made their first big headlines as they started to export their most famous flavors to other nations as early as 3375, just five years after the reconnection, when most companies and industrial sectors were still struggling to get anything ready to export that would actually be bought on the far more advanced international galactic market. The relatively low employee numbers of the corporation are usually attributed to the high level of automation during all steps of the distribution and creation process.
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History
The corporation was founded in 3365 by a local confectioner named Markus Christian Eshårson on Dalarnas’ End. He started playing around with new pastry creations and a coating technique that allowed him to coat the bottom as well as the top part of a donut-like treat, by twirling and flattening a string of dough with filling into a Moebius strip. They soon became a local hit and with his family being involved in politics of the region his creations soon got to be exported and usually became hits wherever they were sold. The small business grew very quickly also due to the fact that they cleverly combined the export with small automated vending machines which ensured easy and fresh distribution even in hard to reach areas.
Ten years after their first product was sold, the corporation – by then already represented on every planet in the Star Trading Conglomerate – became the first major company to export their goods into other major nations in the galaxy. They became early private adopters of the three-one convoy doctrine outside of Conglomerate space, where three civilian freighters are usually accompanied by one Emporos frigate – provided by the Conglomerate’s Interplanetary Trading Ministry (ITM) – which escorts the freighters through the largely unclaimed and pirate-infested regions directly in the galactic west of Talisinkin.
Corporate Identity
The vending machines patented by the Møbius Donuts Corp. are set up with a wide array of flavors and general abilities to mix molecules together to create special flavors. Bigger machines have also the ability to get fresh ingredients to make even more variations with naturally available components like herbs, fruits, meat, or vegetables in addition to the regular dough and flavored syrup.
Structure
Traveling merchants of the Møbius Donuts Corporations generally set up small mobile trade facilities either directly on their ships or on local market places to wholesale their products to other local businesses. For direct customer purchases they usually also carry vending machines with them that can produce a limited variety of products on the spot. They mostly follow planned routes through as many inhabited star systems as possible, creating a round track until they head back to their home stations or cities. They are never seen twice at the same place on their trade missions as long as they don’t encounter significant problems. This strategy is set up to generate a most divers potential customer base in different regions.
The beforehand mentioned three-one doctrine ties corporate actions very strictly to government guidelines since the fear of losing the ITM’s support usually forces private merchants to comply with orders coming from officials, especially outside the Conglomerate’s territory. This has been a steady force in guiding corporate expansion and control in other nations allowing the Conglomerate government to influence foreign market behavior to a limited extent. Most corporate offices or trading outpost facilities have some ties to the governmental structure which keeps track of most activities of influenced corporations that operate in international ventures. If a Møbius Donuts convoy is flying supply missions or conducts trading, official representatives – even if not fully detectable on first sight – are usually not far and it can be assumed that they monitor the situation in close proximity. As they do they usually don’t prohibit illegal business as long as it does not influence strategic governmental visions or lower overall Conglomerate standing.
Products
The most infamous official variation is the “Triple-coffee-olive-donut” or “Tricod”. With a salty bitter taste and enough caffeine inside to give unprepared people heart problems if they eat too much of them at a time. There are even rumors of addictive variations sometimes called “Finnish steamroll” which reportedly has some illegal drugs mixed inside made by criminal individuals. Those stories, however, are said to be made up and the company denies any allegations of support regarding addictive substances in their products.
Criticisms
Apparently, the “Finnish steamroll” rumors originated during an incident in 3420, where Independent Cloud Corsair associates presented themselves as corporate affiliated merchants and sold several crates of amphetamine spiked pastry to Norcian soldiers on Carpathia. This then resulted in the incarceration of these individuals. There are no official reports on what happened to these individuals after this, as the corporation denied any responsibilities and the Conglomerate government did not pursue the matter any further as associates of the independent pirate faction are declared stateless and usually do not have conglomerate citizenship.