Food Business

This course provides MPS learners with the opportunity to connect with their cohort, practice organization and team management skills, learn more about the entrepreneurial food space, and complete a baseline self-evaluation of skill sets and mind sets in the context of an entrepreneurial career. During this residency, students will participate in a Keys in Online Learning session that provides the necessary resources to set them up for program success.

In this residency, students will have the opportunity to attend the CIA-Harvard Menus of Change® conference focusing on The Business of Healthy, Sustainable, Delicious Food Choices, experiencing the dynamic guest speakers both at the conference and in special sessions designed for the MPS program. Students will have the opportunity to interact with leaders in the food industry and begin to consider who they might identify as members of a committee to provide mentorship for the Capstone project. Capstone project/business playbook introductory information will be communicated to students and students will gain practice with their pitch.

Over two days of structured Q&A, peer evaluation, discussion and practice presentation, students will hone their skills to prepare for the final event. The students will gather in their communities of practice for peer review and discussion prior to delivering their final Playbook presentation to an audience of faculty and administrators, and may include selected guests. In addition, students will complete self-evaluations and peer evaluations on final projects/playbooks and on the overall degree program. Students will participate in a graduation ceremony on the final day of the residency.

Food systems exist at the nexus of human health and environmental sustainability -- and food makes abstract concepts personal. New discoveries, particularly in biology, are transforming everything about the food system. This course will present learners with opportunities to connect with cutting-edge technology, developing trends, and advances in policy. This course has integrated these topics in a way that reflects state-of-the art systems-thinking for broader and deeper impact. Participation will provide students with the critical understanding and the practical experience to strengthen the restaurant concept, build the product development plan, or enhance the food innovation portfolio. 

Along with a team of fellow learners and faculty, students will spend fifteen weeks in a collaborative, online learning environment gaining access to the fundamental scientific and technical information needed to create solutions to our most pressing food-connected problems and plan for the innovative food business opportunities these challenges present. Students will review the latest trends and technologies in the food system and have the opportunity to produce learning artifacts that will prepare them to succeed in the MPS program.

Transforming the food system requires more than just passion and intent. Learners need to move quickly from idea to plan to action--and do so with rigor, empathy, and effectiveness. By embracing a process that calls on collaboration, negotiation, and inquiry-based engagements with a diverse group of stakeholders, students in this course will learn to listen empathetically and act deliberately. These complementary skill sets are the hallmarks of design thinking, and this course is vital in strengthening visioning, planning, and execution capabilities, as students seek to create a positive impact at the intersection of food and health. In this fifteen-week online course, students will have the opportunity to work on a strategic sequence of design thinking challenges that will help them to solve complex and ambiguous problems. These skills will be applied to business concepts as students identify, develop, and test assumptions through the completion of a series of exercises that are designed to engage new ways of thinking, working, and learning.  Students will work individually, while sharing their projects in forums, as prototypes are developed using design thinking methods. A process of rapid iteration will be used to modify concepts, and lean methodology will be used to engage in customer interviews and develop a minimum viable product. Students will also gain early practice in pitching a concept based on what they've learned.

Effective ethical leadership in food requires more than a sense of right and wrong--it requires the ability to lead with purpose. New food leaders need the tools to develop and sustain a personal moral compass, a strong understanding of the risks inherent to the food system, and the ability to apply ethical decision-making across a range of issues impacting the food industry. This hands-on course will take students through a series of interactive exercises. They will engage theoretical models, participate in group discussions, develop research questions, create media assets, compose white papers, and use their developing mindsets, toolsets, and skillsets to solve real-world problems. Students will draft a mission statement, craft a list of core values, examine real-world ethical crises in the food system and evaluate the responses, conduct field interviews, and learn from existing food business leaders as they identify the ethical framework for their food ventures.

This course will provide theoretical exposure to effective management strategies and operational models for foodservice focused business ventures. A series of case study explorations and experiential simulations will allow learners to practice a variety of concepts and problem-solving techniques, using individually selected projects. Exercises and assignments will demonstrate how effective strategies affect and impact a business, and how they can successfully facilitate the creation of productive systems that capture value for multiple stakeholders.

In this course students will explore components of product differentiation through branding, packaging, and consumer storytelling. Students will investigate various techniques to create a distinct and memorable brand and to understand the difference between an effective food brand and a commodity product. Brand values, product definition, competitive positioning, and consumer narrative will be broken down with the goal of learning to build long-term success and gain a loyal consumer following. Students will identify and develop a brand strategy that illustrates the brand or company's core values, is true to a mission, and demonstrates a solid understanding of a product line's positioning within the competitive market.

This course will provide the strategies and skills needed to navigate the food industry from a marketing and branding perspective. The course lectures and supplemental materials will guide learners in the development of relevant and sustainable food and beverage, restaurant, and food-based brand experiences that anticipate and fulfill the needs of today's consumers. This course is designed to set a foundation for generating meaningful new concepts that are viable in the marketplace, desirable to consumers, and operationally and financially feasible. Learners will practice developing and applying the concepts and tools such as writing a business challenge statement, brand development and positioning work, storytelling, guest segmentation and needs identification in order to learn how to respond to the challenges of a competitive market.

This course is designed to provide the solid understanding of real estate concepts that will play a key role in the professional development of a food business leader--particularly pertaining to important concerns of a new business. This will include decision making processes for determining business location, and evaluating lease or purchase agreements. Key information will be provided by faculty, guest speakers, and course materials to develop a solid understanding of ascertaining overall short-term and long-term capital needs. The course will include key approaches for evaluating a variety of corporate structures, investor relationships, and partnerships necessary to support a growing business. Learners will practice business strategy development in these areas.

This course will provide theoretical exposure to best practices as well as hands-on experience in case-explorations and simulated strategy development in food product marketing, sales, and distribution. Students will develop tools and strategies specific to a product in these areas that are designed to meet the needs of today's quickly evolving food and beverage marketplace. Projects will include evaluation of stakeholder expectations, target customer analysis and segmentation, market evaluation and measurement, sales process development, and operational and budgetary efficiency planning.

The Food Business Playbook course serves as a capstone seminar, designed to provide MPS learners with the opportunity to apply, demonstrate, integrate, and synthesize the competencies and learning outcomes obtained and developed throughout the MPS program and overall course of study. After completing a 10-course sequence of specialized instruction, which includes two preparatory residencies, MPS learners will develop their Food Business Playbook in this seminar, in anticipation of presenting the outcome in a final residency, which will include the conferring of their MPS degree. Through the successful completion of a series of structured research and development checkpoints, MPS learners will demonstrate that they possess the knowledge, skills, and mindsets required to obtain a graduate degree in food business, advance their professional position, and/or launch their unique food business venture. Building on the competencies achieved in their previous courses, and including the information shared during their second residency (MPS_501B: Framing the Capstone Project), MPS learners will enter this course with a proficient knowledge of research methods, customer interview skills, financial forecasting, marketing plans, food system analysis, ethical leadership skills, basic legal strategies, and the operational management principles that best support their food business venture (whether a foodservice concept, or connected to consumer packaged goods). As a true graduate-level capstone course, successful progress in this asynchronous, online seminar will include the expected hallmarks of self-directed, graduate-level learning. This will include demonstrated proficiency in areas that include an ability to conduct and report on independent research; write clear, professional, written reports; deliver high-quality, professional presentations (written and oral); and conduct appropriate field work and practical applications of theory - including customer interviews, site visits, and test runs of product or recipe / menu offerings.