A team of Penn State Smeal MBA students spent their final semester in the program working with entrepreneur Sisay Shimelis on an aspect of his ambitious project to improve the quality of life for Ethiopians.
Shimelis, the founder, president, and CEO of NutrAfrica, seeks to lower the cost of the food staple, injera, for Ethiopians while introducing production methods that are both socially and environmentally sustainable. Injera is a sourdough flatbread-like food made from the East African grain teff, and it makes up a significant portion of many Ethiopians’ caloric consumption. Traditionally, Ethiopian women and children cook the food over an open fire, which leads to respiratory problems—and is also causing deforestation in the region.
A key part of Shimelis’ overall business strategy is to export injera to the American market—and that’s where the MBA students come in. As part of the spring 2014 Applied Professional Experience (APEX), second-year MBA students Peter Chamberlain, Elizabeth Combs, Michele Harrison, Syed Khazi and Ian McSpadden worked as a team to create a strategy for expanding injera’s presence in the American market.
A capstone component of the Penn State Smeal MBA Program, APEX links teams of students in their final semesters with companies and organizations looking to address specific business challenges.
The social and environmental aspects of the project were what initially drew Harrison to participate: “I have a strong interest in social enterprise,” she said. “And I wanted to work for a smaller company where our project could have the greatest impact.”
The team was tasked with developing the strategy and corresponding implementation plan -- including distribution channels, supply chain logistics, pricing model, web-enabled order processing, and more -- for bringing the NutrAfrica’s injera product to the U.S. market from its manufacturing facility in Ethiopia.