Coloradans hear so much about Rocky Ford melons and Palisade peaches they mistakenly believe those fruits are among the top five products grown or raised in the state. Try cattle, dairy, corn, hay, and wheat, in that order.
If the NFL Super Bowl is the apex for chicken-wing sales across the United States, Halloween is when HARIBO gummy candy sales soar.
Dippin’ Dots – big hits with kids at baseball stadiums and amusement parks – were created in a Kentucky garage when a microbiologist fiddling with making flash-frozen feed for cattle thought, “What if I tried this with ice cream?”
These delicious details are staples of a new master’s degree program Colorado State University launched after several years of discussion about the Centennial State’s growing role in food innovation.
“We were recognizing this hotbed of innovation emerging along the Front Range in everything from water and irrigation, technology, animal health and nutrition, all the way downstream to new foods, new food ingredients, and new retail formats,” said Greg Perry, a CSU professor of agricultural and resource economics.
“Denver was really at the heart of the creation with establishments like Chipotle and Qdoba presenting a new nutritious format, compared to the existing fast-food chain format.”
The program began ramping up in the fall of 2022, with a handful of part-time students attending classes at CSU Spur, the CSU System’s campus in north Denver adjacent to the National Western Stock Show. Twelve full-time students started in the fall of 2023, taking classes on food innovation, marketing, and accounting on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights.
The students are currently in their spring semester. They will meet this summer and fall and are scheduled to graduate in December 2024, each with a master’s degree in Agribusiness and Food Innovation Management.
By then, some could already have jobs with major companies or be developing the next big thing.
“These students don’t know it yet, but they’re about to embark on the journey of their lives,” professor Greg Graff said. “That’s the fun thing.”
Partial student cohort and professors for the Agribusiness & Food Innovation Management program.
A variety of lecturers spoke to the class during the fall, either in person or online, engaging with students on a range of topics.
“Being exposed to incredible speakers is really cool,” said Rebecca Jurado, 22, who received her undergraduate degree at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. “None of these classes are boring.”
Certainly not when you get to sample HARIBO gummy bears. They’ve been around since 1922, but entering the U.S. market took time, said HARIBO vice president Seth Klugherz. Other companies began making the candy knockoffs that most Americans grew up eating.
When HARIBO came to the United States in 1982, the company had just a few employees, and it took time to learn the market. The company then added resources and brought in leaders who knew the confections market, Klugherz told the class.
Growth has been “explosive” since that time, Klugherz said.
Several students said they were enthralled at hearing from Roy Pfaltzgraff, who grew up on his family’s farm south of Haxtun in northeast Colorado. He said his father tried different farming methods, to the chagrin of his grandfather, who wanted things to stay the same.
That hasn’t happened.
These days Pfaltzgraff Farms LLC bills itself as a “family farm producing quality agricultural products using sustainable methods for a healthier world.” Along the way, the farm reduced its use of herbicides and fertilizer by more than 50%, and it now produces gluten-free grain and sells honey.
In addition to listening to speakers, the students formed themselves into teams after studying redacted resumes listing classmates’ attributes, such as a risk taker or laid back, to seek out strengths that might be complementary. Near the end of the semester, the teams listened to pitches from 15 entities, and then each team sat down and discussed which of the project ideas they wanted to pursue.
“The students were in the driver’s seat. They were the ones picking the businesses, the professionals that were pitching to them. That was very much our intention, to give them that power of choice,” Graff said.
“Some of our rationale for that is we want to give the younger generation the ability to shape the new innovation. It’s not the middle-aged guys calling the shots here, it’s the 20-something crowd. They’re the ones saying these are the kinds of innovations, products, and technologies that we think are going to make a difference and that we think we can contribute to.”
One of those 20-somethings is Morgan Johnston, a Colorado native who graduated from CU Denver with a degree in communication and business. After working as a vet tech, she thought about enrolling at CSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences but then came across the food innovation program.
“During my undergrad, I studied abroad in Spain for food and culture and it got me thinking about our environment, sustainability, food, ag,” she said. “The program is a lot of work but it’s definitely eye-opening, and helping me get my foot in the door, meeting new people, and giving me direction on where I want to go after I graduate.”
Left: Professor Laston Charriez shares food trends with students. Right: Ashley Murdock, Rebecca Jurado, and Madeline Livermore examine redacted resumes of their classmates to create teams based on individuals’ character traits.
Graff said students don’t have to enroll in the master’s program to attend the classes. For example, they might be interested in the innovation class Monday nights at CSU Spur.
“You just have to be curious about how our food industry works and how it all knits together and how it is constantly changing and reinventing itself,” Graff said.
He credited assistant professor Laston Charriez with tackling that theme. Few can match Charriez’s marketing credentials. Among the companies he has worked or consulted for, both in the United States and overseas, are Sara Lee, Procter & Gamble, Denver Mattress, Western Union, and Pilgrim’s Pride, the largest chicken company in the world – which is why he knows about chicken-wing sales during the Super Bowl.
“Laston brings so much to this program. He really straddles between academia and industry, and that’s key for this whole program,” Graff said.
“It’s honestly harder for those of us who were raised up and trained as academics. We’re really good analysts and scientists. There will be elements in this program where I’m going to be able to bring in insights from what I do my research in as a professor. But I can’t talk Super Bowl. Laston can, very legitimately. That’s what we’re really trying to blend in this program, academic rigor with real-world relevance.”
Charriez urged students to “change the algorithm” so they “stumble” on new things, describing how Dippin’ Dots were created by accident.
“Surprise yourself. Can we do that?” he said. “Make sure you’re stumbling on new things because if not, serendipity doesn’t happen.”
The professor pointed to Georgia, where climate change and the resulting hotter weather have played havoc with its renowned peach production. At the same time, drought in California was drying up the walnut crop.
“So what are farmers in Georgia doing? They’re growing nuts. They’re growing more pecans and peanuts. Georgia farmers are trying to adapt to the new climate. Was it serendipity that got them there or research?” Charriez asked.
For their final exam, students on Dec. 4 listened to a presentation by Patrick Libonate, founder of the startup company Denver Bone Broth. He and Charriez had talked at a food event at CSU Spur, and Libonate accepted the professor’s offer of a free consultation from the students.
Libonate passed out samples of chicken and beef bone broth to the class before he offered sensitive inside information about the business, including how the product is made and, of course, costs. Money is tight, but he said he is encouraged by the growing sales of the high-end product.
The following week the students delivered their sometimes brutal assessments, offering suggestions to boost sales, raising concerns about the long-term viability of the beef-bone supplier, and, in one case, questioning the originality of a new product label.
Libonate took it all in, laughingly thanking the students for reminding him that “I am broke.”
“As a business owner with a small team, you can get trapped working in a silo. I loved having a room of bright students come at this with a different point of view,” he later said. “For me, having the opportunity to have this unbiased feedback was really great.”
Denver Bone Broth is already working on some of the students’ ideas, Libonate added.
From now until graduation, the students will work in the teams they formed and with the “idea provider” each selected after hearing 15 presentations in the fall. Those making pitches to the students: three CSU research groups with technologies for commercialization; an agricultural producer from Colorado; an independent food innovator from Colorado; three ag-tech startup companies, of which two are based in Colorado and one is based in Chicago; a major U.S. packaged foods company; a Canadian beverage startup; a Mexican food company; and an Asian farming operation and food/beverage product exporter.
Graff said professors were surprised that each of the five teams selected a different idea provider.
Colorado native Max Roepe is one of three students whose team is now working with the Asian company.
He graduated from CSU in 2017 with a degree in Human Dimensions of Natural Resources, exploring the socio-economic relationship with natural resource management. Afterward, he served in the Peace Corps in Jamaica and returned to Colorado and worked at a variety of jobs, including sales and commercial farming, before deciding to go for his master’s.
“I love the program. I think it’s great,” Roepe said. “It’s so immersive and engaging.”
Like many of the students in the class, he praised the professors.
The feeling is mutual.
“We love these guys,” Graff said. “We’re really pouring our hearts and souls into making sure this program meets them where they’re at, and creates opportunities for them they just couldn’t have gotten any other way.”
Lynn Bartels worked as a journalist for 35 years, including stints at the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post.