Edible Spoons Take the Cake

A proposal to produce an edible spoon took first place in this year's Entrepreneurship Immersion Week competition for undergraduates.

A team of students representing Cleveland State University came up with the winning concept and a business plan to market the spoon during the entrepreneurship "boot camp" experience at Kent State University. Cleveland State student John Adams explained that the spoon - made of granola-style oats - could be used by school children to eat yogurt, for instance. Once the yogurt was consumed, the spoon could be eaten too. The company name - Greenolies - includes a reference to the fact that the utensil wouldn't wind up in a landfill.

"The concept was very focused," the judges said.

A team from Ashland University placed second for its proposed business, Nourish US, which was presented as a fast-food franchise that would offer locally grown and healthy food.

"I am very proud of our Ashland student success at this intercollegiate competition," Jeffrey Russell, AU's interim dean of the Dauch College of Business and Economics, said. "Their success is a reflection of the quality of the Ashland University educational, experiential and support programs to prepare our students for the rigors of living and working in the global economy of the 21st century."

A team from the University of Akron finished third for Silent Signal, a company that would produce a personal transmitter to call for help in an emergency while on a college campus.

This was the third year for the Entrepreneurship Immersion Week, which rotates among the collegiate members of the Entrepreneurship Education Consortium: Ashland, Baldwin-Wallace College, Case Western Reserve, John Carroll, Akron, and Kent State. A $79,000 grant from The Burton D. Morgan Foundation helped support the summer program.

Each of the schools sends five students. The winning team this year, however, was unusual because Cleveland State had only one participant. Alternate students from other schools - two from Kent State and one each from the University of Akron and Baldwin-Wallace - were then invited to join student John Adams from CSU to form a team to represent Cleveland State.

The second-place students from Ashland were Alecia Michitsch from Grafton; Kerry Miles from Richfield; Jeremy Sloan from Twinsburg; Zach Snyder from Millersburg, and Ben Tracey from Lakeview.

Three of the members from the winning team are now pursuing an effort to market the edible spoon. The students - Michael Matousek and Nadar Baraty from Kent State University and Ryan Kinnan from the University of Akron - are contacting area bakeries to get help in making a marketable prototype. The students have also filed and been accepted for a provisional patent on the concept, according to Julie Messing, director of the Center of Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation at Kent State.