The following was an article written in the Buffalo news by Samantha Christmann all credit to the author and the Buffalo News:
From farm to table, the food industry relies on a host of people in varied roles to keep it running smoothly.
Never did the importance of those roles become so obvious as during the Covid pandemic, when everyone learned that grocery personnel were essential workers and terms like “supply chain” became household words.
The food industry has a ferocious appetite for professionals who understand things like supply chain management, food marketing, logistics and sustainability. In Western New York, food companies like Rich Products, Perry’s Ice Cream and Delaware North Cos. employ thousands.
And career opportunities in the food industry are expected to grow, according to employment projections from the state Labor Department.
The need for purchasing managers in Western New York is expected to increase by 17% by 2030, with entry-level salaries pegged at more than $100,000 a year. Transportation, storage and distribution managers start at around $70,000 and demand for them is expected to increase by 19%.
Yet many college students preparing for their futures are unaware those careers exist, or are oblivious to what they entail.
That’s something Niagara University is ready to change with its bachelor’s degree in food systems – an interdisciplinary degree designed to recruit, educate and graduate students into managerial careers in the wide and varied food industry, which covers everything from agriculture to retail to hospitality.
The food systems program is “not a case of ‘If you build it, they will come,” said Mark Frascatore, dean of Niagara University’s Holzschuh College of Business Administration, so student recruitment will be crucial to the program’s success.
“Prospective students don’t really know that food systems is a thing,” he said. He added later, “Very few prospective students say, ‘You know what, I want to graduate into the food industry.’ So we need to get the word out there on what this is and what a robust and interesting industry it is.”
Students will be prepared for a variety of roles in things like research and development, logistics, transportation and digital marketing. “Rich Products does research and development for its food all the time, so somebody needs to manage that,” said Frascatore.
“How do we get foods traveling long distance without spoiling? What are the expiration dates on them?” he asked. “We need people who understand that. We need people who are good at digital marketing and management. We need people who are good at hospitality and customer service. We need people who are good at retail. So all of those things are touched upon in this major.”
The university worked closely with food industry executives to shape the program, so that students will be prepared for their new careers as soon as they graduate. In addition to Tops, it sought expertise from companies such as Wegmans, Perry’s and Rich Products.
“One thing they told us is that they don’t necessarily care whether they’re business students,” Frascatore said. “We kind of thought that’s what they wanted, but they said, ‘No, it doesn’t matter. We like chemists, we like hospitality people, we like philosophers. It doesn’t matter, as long as they have an understanding of the food industry and why it’s important.”
Jeffrey Culhane, senior vice president of merchandising at Tops Markets, was integral to the development of the program.
Tops said the academic major will provide a vital pipeline of talent that could go to work in a number of managerial positions in Tops stores, in its corporate office and in distribution.
“We need up-and-coming food executives and workers in our industry that have some food background,” Tops President Ron Ferri said.
Until now, Tops has been most successful recruiting managers and other corporate-level positions by promoting workers from within. “Store management positions are something that we highly covet and need. So someone that comes out of school that has a food background, they would immediately go into a a management position in the store and work their way up to be a store manager,” Ferri said. “But obviously, having that background would allow them to do that quicker than someone who worked through the ranks of the stores.”
More of those positions have come available since Tops merged with Price Chopper/Market 32. We have corporate associates that support both companies that work here out of our office, which is fantastic. Since the merger happened, not one person has lost their job here. In fact, we’ve hired more because we’ve needed more to support both organizations,” Ferri said. “So it’s really been a great opportunity for employees, or potential employees here to go into a lot of different roles.”
Courses of study in the program draw heavily from experiential learning and industry partnerships.
The program will provide a pool of qualified college graduates into the food industry, where there is a great demand for new blood, Frascatore said.
“We want to inform students and educate students and prepare students for the food industry, because it’s an extremely important industry, particularly in Western New York,” Frascatore said. “There are so many food industry companies here, it’s really the greatest congregation of food companies in the United States, here in Western New York. It’s really important that we graduate students into that.”
When Frascatore joined Niagara University six years ago, food marketing was a concentration within the marketing major but there were applications for more types of students as well as a growing need for interdisciplinary expertise.
“There was a growing sentiment to broaden the breadth of the students that are graduating,” he said. “So why just marketing students? Why not have supply chain people? Why not have accountants? For that matter, why not chemists? Why not hospitality people? Why not nutrition people?”
Niagara University’s colleges of business, hospitality, arts and sciences, and nursing all contributed to the curriculum.
“They really need a holistic view of what the food system looks like, and that’s how I’m trying to educate our students,” Frascatore said.
The College of Nursing designed a nutrition course for the major.
“It’s really about people who are conscious about what they’re eating, what they’re creating, what they’re producing, and so on,” Frascatore said. “So a good understanding of nutrition will be important in production and consumption.”
Chemistry also will come into play.
“Every component of the food system is ruled by chemistry: taste, smell, texture, all the things that are discussed in the food systems process are being defined by chemists,” said Mary McCourt, professor of chemistry at Niagara University.
That doesn’t mean students will be balancing equations in class.
“The course that we have designed is a three-credit course, and the emphasis is to have the students leave the course with an appreciation for the role of chemistry within food systems,” she said.
The major’s interdisciplinary approach is a key to its success, said Bridget Niland, dean of the College of Hospitality and Tourism.
There is no longer a place for silos on campus or in the workplace, she said. The careers of tomorrow demand a multidisciplinary approach, and Niagara University needs to prepare its students for that kind of collaboration, she said.
That collaboration also will help Niagara University differentiate itself as an option for higher education. The competition for students will be “fierce,” as a drop in birth rates in 2008 will soon translate to fewer students enrolling in college, she said. Innovations like the food systems program will give Niagara University an edge, she said.
“We build these majors based on academic interests, based on what we want to study,” she said. “And there aren’t enough of these majors in which we go out to the industry and say, ‘What do you need?’ And that’s what we were really able to do.”
The university has hired Rosina Food Products 40-year veteran John Zimmerman to be its endowed external director of food industry excellence to recruit students to the food systems and supply chain programs. The post was made possible by a $1.5 million gift from the Wegmans Foundation. An internal Robert B. Wegman director, whose job it will be to keep the curriculum on the cutting edge, is being scouted now.
The food systems program is expected to launch in the fall semester of next year.