Fresh & Fruity Foods is a mail-order company operating out of a winery near Summerland, British Columbia. The company specializes in sending British Columbian specialties to catalogue customers nationwide. Sales are seasonal, with most occurring in November and December - when people elect Fresh & Fruity s Famous Fruit Fantasy boxes as Christmas gifts. Although seasonal, the company 's sales are fairly predictable, because the bulk of Fresh & Fruity's customers are regulars who purchase year after year. The company has also managed to smooth out its sales somewhat by offering incentives, such as the Fruit of the Month Club, which encourages customers to buy throughout the year. The nature of the mail-order business is such that most of Fresh & Fruity's sales are on credit; therefore, the company has historically had a high accounts receivable balance relative to sales. It has also historically been short of cash, forcing it to delay payments to suppliers as long as possible (its average time to pay accounts in 2003 was 67 days). In January 2007, Tom Appleby and Alice Plummer, the president and treasurer of Fresh