Social Entrepreneurship in Sustainable Food Business

Catalog description

Today, a poor diet is the leading cause of mortality in the U.S. The food industry is now the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. The food and agricultural sector is the largest employer on the planet. The food system is broken, and its cracks became more visible than ever during the pandemic of 2020, with produce rotting on farms and livestock being put to death prematurely, while millions go hungry. Food is vital to our survival and happiness, but has also become the cause of vast negative externalities with disastrous outcomes. This course is designed to put the idea of teaching social entrepreneurship to its ultimate test, with a focus on identifying and solving problems in the food industry through the vehicle of entrepreneurship. The objective of this course is to incubate a food venture that has the potential to be a viable business and positively impact public health and/or environmental outcomes. Once the semester begins, “start-up” teams of four to five students each will be formed. Teams will be tasked with identifying problems in the food sector they wish to solve, generating ideas and prototypes, and building business models using a variety of frameworks and tools including Human Centered Design and the Business Model Canvas. Teams will have the liberty to study the food industry in very broad terms, and may have solutions across a variety of verticals such as technology, farming, manufacturing, distribution, and more. Teams will also be encouraged to evaluate problems from multiple lenses, including nutrition, climate change, animal welfare, and inequality.