Former Haas MBA Lecturer to Open Food Business School: MBA News

By Tim Dhoul Updated Sep 05, 2019

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Introduction
From the Republic of Tea to Berkeley’s Haas MBA
‘Tremendous opportunities ahead’ in food industry

Food Business School project from former Haas MBA lecturer

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A former Haas MBA lecturer and serial entrepreneur, William Rosenzweig, is to be the driving force behind an attempt to open a business school dedicated to innovation within the food industry – heralded as the world’s first.

Food Business School (FBS) will open its doors for short executive education programs tailored towards those already established in the food industry next spring. However, Rosenzweig – who spent a decade helming a Haas MBA course on social entrepreneurship – hopes to launch a 30-week “MBA alternative” for budding startup foodies in 2016, according to Forbes.

“The food sector is attracting new talent, technologies, and capital that are being driven by the pressing issues of personal and planetary health and sustainability,” said Rosenzweig, who formed part of the faculty at the school’s Center for Responsible Business during his time with the Haas MBA.

From the Republic of Tea to Berkeley’s Haas MBA

William Rosenzweig was a co-founder of specialty tea company, the Republic of Tea before joining the Haas MBA faculty. This experience led to a best-selling book (The Republic of Tea: How an Idea Becomes a Business) chronicling the process of getting a startup off the ground in the food industry. Although that startup has since been sold on, Rosenzweig moved on to multiple projects and is now a managing partner of Physic Ventures, a venture capital firm that sets its stall out on the premise of keeping people healthy.

As executive director at Food Business School, Rosenzweig wants to ensure that those displaying the requisite passion to launch innovative food industry startups are also grounded in its day-to-day realities – “the fact that it takes 160 days to grow a carrot,” as he told Forbes for example.

For that reason, FBS will strive to place business school faculty alongside food industry practitioners at its San Francisco base.

‘Tremendous opportunities ahead’ in food industry

The initiative forms part of the Culinary Institute of America’s (CIA) recipe for greater provisions in the sphere of food education – not least because of the business opportunities that lie ahead for the food industry, which in turn should allow FBS to charge course prices akin to those found elsewhere in the business education market.

“The food business is unlike any other business. There are tremendous opportunities ahead—all unfolding in a fast and dynamic environment,” said Dr Tim Ryan, president of the Culinary Institute of America and a Certified Master Chef in a press release.

Food-related startups are now taking an increasingly large bite out of venture capital funding, according to Tech Crunch. It says investors are particularly enamored with ideas that take a health or dietary angle, highlighting the recent examples of an egg substitute (Hampton Creek) raising US$23M from a firm backed by Hong Kong billionaire, Li Ka-shing, and a school-lunch company securing US$30M from the former AOL CEO, Steve Case, and his VC firm, Revolution Ventures.

Written by

Tim Dhoul

Tim is a writer with a background in consumer journalism and charity communications. He trained as a journalist in the UK and holds degrees in history (BA) and Latin American studies (MA).