Four students in the University of Missouri College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources competed in and won the FDRS Student Food Marketing Challenge at the 2017 Food Distribution Research Society Conference.

This marks the first time that a group from MU has won. Previous winners include Texas A&M University, California State University, University of Kentucky, Utah State University, California Polytechnic University, University of Alberta and Oklahoma State University. The conference was held at the Hilton Waikiki Beach Hotel in Hawaii from Oct. 20-24 with the student competition taking place from Oct. 21-22.

For the competition, students act as consultants for an unknown industry client using their knowledge of food distribution, marketing, management, economics and merchandising. Two weeks before, each group receives guidance on how to prepare and discovers the name of the company on the morning of the competition. Teams then compete to present their bid to the company’s executive team.

The University of Missouri was represented by Emma Boase, graduate student in agricultural and applied economics from Prebbleton, New Zealand; Drew Cox, junior in agribusiness management from Princeton, Missouri; Nora Faris, senior in science and agricultural journalism, from Concordia, Missouri; and Alexandra Stichnote, junior in agribusiness management from Ashland, Missouri.

The team was advised by Jamille Palacios Rivera, assistant teaching professor of agricultural and applied economics in the Division of Applied Social Sciences. Randall Westgren, professor of agricultural and applied economics and director of the McQuinn Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, assisted in obtaining the resources to make students’ involvement in the competition possible.