A team of three students from the University of Connecticut placed first in a food marketing competition that took place in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 12.
The team consisted of John Daly, Jacob Timchak and William Hiers III, three students from the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. It was put together by assistant professor Cristina Connolly, who previously worked with teams for this competition at California Polytechnic State University.
Hiers, a senior environmental economics major, said it took some time for the team to coordinate and work cohesively, but they soon became “a really complementary team.”
The Food Distribution Research Society, who held the competition, sent each team a real food marketing problem to consider, and each team had to submit a 10-minute video proposing a solution to that problem. The top three teams were then invited to the Food Distribution Research Society conference to present their solutions in person and answer questions from the judges.
The team from UConn was assigned to create a solution for a company from Uzbekistan, Metin LLC, looking to expand their international market beyond Russia. Their solution will be sent to Metin LLC for their consideration.
Hiers said they analyzed different markets and products to “filter out what the best markets and the best products were for them.” The team ultimately proposed a plan recommending that the company sell dried fruits to the United Kingdom and fresh fruits to China.
Hiers said that one of the team’s advantages was the variety of strengths among the three members.
“We had different ages, we had different interests, sort of different backgrounds, definitely different majors, so it was a lot of that diversity that was able to pull us together,” Hiers said.
According to Hiers, the team’s different skills and interests gave them an advantage in the competition, such as Timchak’s skills in videography.
“Even though that’s not his major, he was great at directing us, directing the camera, you know, making sure the video presentation was really polished,” Hiers said. “John is very technical and very analysis-oriented and then I obviously am the people person because I just love to talk.”
Hiers also said that he believed their success could partially be attributed to the way that they analyzed the big picture of their problem instead of focusing on specifics.
“We were doing analyses that other groups hadn’t even thought of, and then when we got that feedback, we sort of doubled down and said, ‘OK, how much more in-depth can we do this?’” Hiers said.
According to Hiers, the team had a month to prepare their in-person presentation after their video was selected as one of the finalists. Hiers also said that the team was under the assumption that the presentation would also be 10 minutes long until two weeks prior to the conference, when they found out that they would have to fill 20 minutes.
“About two weeks into it, we were ready to go with our 10-minute presentation when we got some documentation that said we had 20 minutes, plus a 10-minute Q&A,” Hiers recalled.
Hiers said that the presentation was in a more intimate setting than they expected, with only the team, their advisor and the three judges present. He also said that the judges seemed critical during the Q&A session.
“I definitely would have to say we were in a bit of shock when we found out we won,” Hiers said. “It did not seem like the judges were really leaning our way.”
In addition to their solution being sent to Metin LLC, the team received a plaque and a $1,000 cash prize to split among the three of them.
“What we did was work really, really, really hard, and do a good job, and thankfully we came away with a prize for it,” Hiers said.