Four agribusiness and food industry management students traveled to Las Vegas last month to participate in a national intercollegiate case study competition.
Learsi Avendano, Samara Asad, Esmeralda Arias, and Selena Boroff competed against teams from 13 other universities at the National Grocers Association Foundation Student Case Study Competition.
The event challenges students to present solutions to an issue that the independent grocery industry is currently facing.
This year’s case study topic was “Keeping Shelves Relevant and Customers Inspired.” Participants were called upon to develop solutions to help Nugget Markets, a grocery chain with 16 stores across Northern California, keep their store shelves engaging and relevant while inspiring customers in an increasingly dynamic grocery environment.
Students were required to:
- create solutions for Nugget Markets identifying the latest trends on social media for food and beverages, including value-added benefits like recipes and wellness
- recommend staffing solutions to support those solutions
- devise a formal process to manage procurement of on-trend products and define metrics to verify success.
- and recommend social, digital, and in-store marketing promotions that highlight product trends.
The Cal Poly ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ team created a data-driven strategy focused on using platforms like TikTok to detect trends early, validate demand through e-commerce and search analytics, and translate those insights into measurable digital and in-store growth.
Agribusiness and Food Industry Management Assistant Professors Julie Lie and Yi Xie were the Cal Poly ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ team’s advisors.
A team from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo won the event, which was held during the National Grocers Association (NGA) Show, Feb. 1-3.
The NGA is the trade association representing the retail and wholesale community grocers.