Homework this fall for a group of University of Saskatchewan students will begin with a meal of meat on a stick and a trip to the local Stop and Go store.
As part of an agribusiness student business plan class, these third and fourth year agriculture students will spend the next two months creating a marketing plan for a Saskatchewan company called Classic Meats and its New York Stick meat snacks.
The students and the company are participating in a university-industry partnership that provides up and coming food processors with a low cost business plan and students with real life experience.
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That experience includes warming and sampling pre-cooked southwest chicken, barbecue pork and teriyaki beef. Student Courtney Boryski said the team will check out competing snack meat products, learn about the convenience store marketplace where the product is headed and do food sampling with fellow students.
Her group cited its own preference for low carb, convenient choices in the $5 and under price range.
“We want to get a feel for the product through the consumer,” she said.
She is excited to be part of the Classic Meats’ launch into new markets.
“It’s rare to get a class where you get so much hands-on,” she said. “You work with a real client and network.”
Classic Meats president Lester Lodoen spent an afternoon with the students talking about his immediate goal of getting his products into convenience stores as well as his longer-term plan to stock the shelves in major grocery store chains.
“We need more marketing, we need more consumer awareness,” said Lodoen, a farmer and meat entrepreneur from Fox Valley, Sask.
“Saskatchewan has a lot of entrepreneurs, but so many have got no tools.”
Lodoen said the student program is a cost effective way to develop a marketing plan. He will pay only $250 for the plan, significantly less than industry prices. The Saskatchewan Council for Community Development, the university’s partner in the program, will kick in another $250.
Lodoen doubted he could accomplish as much as quickly on his own.
Brian Kosteroski, the council’s value chain specialist, said the program is intended to give students the experience to participate in the growing agri-business sector.
“We want to develop resources in Saskatchewan, develop the youth in this area,” he said.
The University of Regina also plans to offer the program, which has more interested businesses than it can accommodate.
Kosteroski will provide students with resources, support and expertise, and will act as a liaison helping students and the client determine where products should be placed and at what price.
Ten Saskatchewan companies will participate this fall.
The student teams will present completed plans to clients in late November.
Those working with Classic Meats are planning careers in agri-marketing following graduation.
Chantal Quesnel of Winchester, Ont., said the program gives her a window into the highly competitive food business.
A plus for Saskatchewan-made products is consumers’ interest in home grown foods, she said.
“They want it from here, not China.”
The experience will help Matt Owens, who plans to join his family’s businesses in grain marketing and pulse processing at Eston, Sask., learn to work with customers and access information on products and their placement in the marketplace.
He cited a wealth of opportunities in agri-businesses.
“It’s very important for the rural economy to keep agriculture going in Saskatchewan,” he said.
In the coming weeks, the students will join in a conference call with an Ontario marketer to learn more about the eastern Canadian marketplace.
They will also sit in as Classic Meats makes a sales pitch to a large American retailer.
The Saskatchewan Council for Community Development arranged that meeting and will do so for other companies that are ready to take on export markets.
“You don’t get more than one chance,” Lodoen said of the daunting business world.
“If we’d been by ourselves, such opportunities like this would have been impossible.”
Lodoen said creating the product was easy compared to developing marketing strategies for the rapidly evolving food industry.
