UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Students in a Penn State agribusiness management class recently got some hands-on experience when they collaborated on a project with Kate’s Real Food, a company specializing in organic snacks.
The company, whose production facilities are located in Bedford, was hoping to get new ideas for solving a problem they had been wrestling with: finding high-quality, organic ingredients that could be sourced locally. They enlisted the help of students in AGBM 460: Managing the Food System, a course offered by the College of Agricultural Sciences.
Mark Gagnon, a Harbaugh Entrepreneur and Innovation Faculty Scholar and teaching professor who led the course, said the project gave students real-world experience while also helping a business find solutions they may not have previously considered.
“In projects like this, our students can provide novel thinking because they often challenge widely held assumptions by those of us that have been longer in practice,” Gagnon said. “And this thinking can help them come up with some new ideas that test and push boundaries that could then lead to some really interesting solutions.”
For the project, the students were split into teams to act as external consultants brought in to pressure-test Kate’s current approach and propose sustainable sourcing strategies. The company wanted ingredients that are USDA Organic, Non-GMO Project Verified, Certified Gluten-Free, Kosher Certified and soy free, as well as available in sufficient volume at a competitive price.
“This was a complex problem that I knew would be challenging for our students,” Gagnon said. “The idea is to put students into a real challenge where there’s no defined correct answer. That’s really important — to deal with ambiguity and uncertainty. But I had confidence that they would outline a path forward and come up with new threads of thinking.”
In the end, Gagnon said the students succeeded in coming up with solutions that could prompt new sourcing strategies for Kate’s Real Food.
For example, while coconuts can’t be grown here in Pennsylvania, the company could buy them whole and process them into chips themselves, bringing production here to the state. They also came up with the idea of partnering with other, non-direct competing food producers that can exert greater buying power.
“Dr. Gagnon’s class gave us thoughtful recommendations on how to scale production while staying true to our values,” said Brittany Thaler, chief marketing officer for Kate’s Real Food. “Their work promotes responsible sourcing and supports Preserve Where You Play — our commitment to preserving the land that grows our food and the places we explore.”
From a student’s perspective, Tucker Hastings — a fourth-year agribusiness major with a minor in entrepreneurship and innovation — said participating in the project helped show him the value of a group of people working together on a shared goal.
“My role was to examine the short- and long-term goals of the company as they strive to scale larger to help address higher demand for products,” he said. “Working on this project — and learning from Dr. Gagnon in general — has truly helped me gain insight into career choices and why I chose this amazing major.”
Gagnon said the project is a reminder of why he likes to incorporate collaborations like this into his courses.
“I haven't yet had a class where the students don’t learn in one of these cases,” he said. “They love it because it gives them similar problems to the ones they’re going to face in their careers and it helps them become that much more prepared. And many of them have used these examples for internship or job interviews — it gives them something to discuss that they can connect over.”