Applying Master’s Degree Knowledge In The Food Industry: MFRE Partners With Lita’s Mexican Foods
As the last step in her masters degree, MFRE student Claire Xia completed her Graduating Project with Lita’s Mexican Foods, during which she developed tools for assessing financial feasibility and managing inventory.
While many 2020 MFRE graduating projects focused on agribusiness or environmental issues, this project applied our professional degree knowledge to the food industry. In particular to a niche but thriving local food company. Winner’s of the 2019 BC Product of the Year award for their Tinga Taco Meal Kit, Lita’s Mexican Foods is a female-led company that has been innovating traditional Mexican foods into healthy and easy to prepare plant-based products since 2016.
This project aimed to enhance systems for assessing product feasibility and managing inventory. To tackle this problem, our student developed a model for estimating the impact of future product launches on important financial indicators such as sales and cash flow. These impacts were summarized in a financial feasibility report that outlines the current status of relevant indicators and the minimum requirements for future product launches. Additionally, the student developed an inventory management system for categorizing raw ingredients, purchasing cycles, and organization into final products. Together, these systems aid in supply chain optimization and in identifying, assessing, and executing growth opportunities. To this day, Lita’s Mexican Foods continues to use these tools in their routine business decision-making. See their comments below.
This has been a really valuable experience for me and my business. The information and models that the MFRE student provided will be very useful in helping to ensure growth of Lita's will go in the best direction. I would be honored to be involved in a future MFRE project; I would definitely recommend the program to my colleagues. – Lita’s Mexican Foods