Presidio’s InFoods team wins Madrona League Business Plan Competition!

On Friday, May 4, 2012 John Heylin, Lauren Wray, William Yeager, and Joey Christiano, a team of four Presidio Graduate School MBA students calling themselves InFoods, won the Madrona League Business Plan Competition.

For those unfamiliar, the Madrona League is a budding collection of schools, including Bainbridge Graduate Institute (BGI) and Presidio Graduate School, who build their curriculum from the ground up through the lens of sustainability. The league reflects the spirit of cooperation between sustainable business education leaders to embody the values of people, planet, profit, and purpose.

The idea behind InFoods

In a global context of rising food prices, extreme population growth, burgeoning consumer health-consciousness, and the increased environmental costs of industrial-scale agriculture, InFoods proposes a low-carbon-footprint food solution in the form of insect based protein.

With their developed market research providing the insight that American consumers are willing to purchase insect based protein if it is processed in such a way that the insect itself is not discernible, InFoods has developed an insect based protein flour that can be added to ready to eat products. With a well thought through strategic plan, the team reportedly handled tough questions from the judges without skipping a beat as they earned their way to the winner’s circle.

Presidio’s SustainVest team also impressed

Congratulations are also in order to Presidio’s SustainVest team, which also competed in the final round. Team members Dale Wannen, Crystal Arvigo, Lara Perlof, and Joe Wilzbacher created an online brokerage platform that integrates the financial, social, and environmental performance data of publicly traded companies in an easy-to-use and engaging format.

Presidians continue to be on the forefront of where business is headed. Go teams!