The Rochelle Township High School FFA Food Science and Technology CDE team won the 2017 state title and the right to compete for a national title in the fall.
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ROCHELLE — If you’re one of those skeptics who doesn’t believe it when your parents, teacher or coach tells you ‘practice makes perfect,’ ask an FFA kid if it’s true. You can find FFA kids in Donna Page’s classroom practicing to be perfect for Nationals in October. That’s right, the RTHS FFA Food Science and Technology CDE team won the 2017 state title and the right to compete for a national title in the fall.
What is Food Science & Technology? It is a competitive event designed to promote learning activities in food science and technology related to the food industry and to assist students in developing practical knowledge of principles used in a team decision-making process.”
“We are given a challenge at every competition. The scenario is that a company has hired our team to create, produce and successfully market a food product,” Andrew Myers explained. “At State on Saturday [March 11], we were hired to create a pizza product and a market for it.”
Myers said the easy part was the ‘who.’
“We decided on hospital and school cafeterias as the volume would allow us to buy ingredients in bulk which is cheaper. Because it was going to schools and hospitals, we had to keep it healthy, so we decided to create a protein-packed pizza (choosing ingredients accordingly). Next we designed a label for marketing as well as a nutrition label and then created a processing hazard analysis.”
The team, which included Myers, Eliza Petry, Claire Plapp and Donnie Harmon, aced the competition.
“We scored 1,600 points, beating the competition by 104,” he said.