Maturity Models as a Diagnostic and Resource Mapping Tool for Food Hubs
Team: Regan Hale, Neal Ronsenberger, Jacob Rutz/Spring 2014
Changes in consumer demand favoring local foods have proliferated in recent years. Desire for traceability and “food with a face” has led to the emergence of new methods of local food distribution in the form of Food Hubs. This MBA team sought to identify, with advisement from successful operators, consultants, investors, and others, Food Hub critical control points and operational success and challenge trends; use these observations to assess where the needs for technical assistance in Food Hub operations lie; and synthesize these observations through the creation of a chronological chart outlining trends in Food Hub operations. The team used a Maturity Model framework to organize its work. Maturity models focus on identifying weaknesses and strengths of companies at different stages of development and serve as benchmarks for comparison.