From my first job as
a Starbucks barista to my last job setting up partnerships between food &
beverage companies and the Gates Foundation, I've been interested in the way
that nourishment acts as a force for community. Though I am no wine connoisseur,
like many others in the class, wine has always been at the table during great
memories of bonding between family and friends.
I'm also interested
in wine because, as a category, it drives innovations in food technology. For
instance, because securing authenticity and certifying provenance matters so
much in high-end wine, blockchain-based solutions applied to the food supply chain
are often using wine as their first use case. Moreover, wine continues to
resist commoditization in the otherwise low-margin food and beverage industry -
despite being an extremely fragmented industry with many rogue actors producing
sub-optimal quality products.
You'll hear from Pete Mondavi, Jr. about the part of the wine world that has been commoditized- "fighting varietal" category- but agree with you completely. And Starbucks Evenings was a very interesting entrepreneurial strategy, speaking of Starbucks, that you are reminding me we should discuss....
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