Artisan Food Course Coming to Portland State University

Thursday, November 06, 2014

Kemea Smith, GoLocalPDX Contributor

“The Business of Artisan Food”

Portland State University is launching “The Business of Artisan Food”, a 15 week non-credit course, taught completely online.

“Portland is one of the leading towns in the United States for food innovators. Everything but tropical fruit grows in the Northwest. Portland is also a coffee, beer, wine and spirits center. There’s a lot of opportunity for food entrepreneurs,” said Associate Professor of Business Administration, Mellie Pullman.

The course, will be taught through PSU’s Center for Executive and Professional Education with Seattle based food entrepreneur, Jennifer Lewis, teaching the course scheduled to begin February 16, 2015. Lewis earned her MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of management, and went on to work at luxury hotels and bakeries as a pastry chef. In 2006 she started her own pastry business.

“In the food world, a lot of folks get into business because of a passion for their product, and they haven’t thought of regulatory hurdles, labeling, brokers, retailers and all the other things that you need to know to make your business survive,” said Lewis.

The new program will will cover topics including health code requirements, food business finance and marketing strategies. Each course is three or four weeks long, and can be taken individually or applied to the certificate. A working business plan will be tested at the end of the program.

For more information click here.

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