Building Knowledge of Agricultural Entrepreneurship through Business Plan Competitions: Case of the Minnesota Cup and ApEc 3551 Exercise

The curriculum for ApEc 3551 at the University of Minnesota has evolved as the class has been taught for the past five years. The class involves focus on group projects and the creation of a business plan for a new ag or food product. What has been missing is the students ability to judge the quality of written business plans in a real world context. The author was selected to judge the Minnesota Cup business plan competition during 2014. This responsibility consisted of reviewing initial proposals(over 80 ) submitted for the business plan competition and voting on the merits of each through three successive rounds of the competition. The later round required a full business plan and investor proposals. Live presentations for the final round were used to select a winner for the category. The category judged by the author was the Food , Ag and Beverage division. A total of seven divisions were judged for the Minnesota Cup. Cash prizes are awarded for each division and one overall winner over all divisions is selected. Cash prizes are awarded in the amount of $20000 for each division and a prize of $50000 for the overall winner. This paper reports of the involvement of students in ApEc 3551 in judging a business plan competition using actual entries for the Minnesota Cup.