Under garden lights and white tents on the patio of the Queally Center for Admission and Career Services, four student teams pulled out the stops at Bench Top Innovations’ fourth annual Great Bake Off.

The November evening event began with an outdoor tasting of each of the competing salad dressings. Then, the crowd moved inside the auditorium to watch the teams make their cases before judges in a friendly Shark Tank-style competition.

This event is just one of the highlights of Bench Top Innovations, a year-long program where seniors from any major create, start, and run a food or beverage business. The Bench Top program is offered by the Robins School of Business and the University of Richmond's Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship initiative. Joel Mier, marketing lecturer and Bench Top’s program director, co-teaches the class with Shane Emmett, a Robins entrepreneur-in-residence and former CEO and founder of Health Warrior.

“Four or five years ago, they came to my office with this crazy idea. ‘Hey, why don't we get students together and have them create a product and go from zero to 100, go from idea to revenue, in nine months?” Robins’ Dean Mickey Quiñones explained at the event. 

In the first semester, students learn how to explore market trends and conduct customer discovery and then work in a commissary kitchen located in the Queally Center to craft their products with the help of a food scientist.

Judges included: Tyler Betzhold, executive chef of University Dining Services; Jerry Hoak, executive creative director of The Martin Agency; Barry Enderwick, author of Sandwiches of History; and Krista Greenberg, director and former head of consumer insights for Red Bull.

“None of these products existed four weeks ago,” Mier reminded the audience.

The students worked closely with graduate students from the VCU Brandcenter to develop a brand strategy for their products. Their Brandcenter partners were among the over 400 attending the event, with several hundred live stream visitors from around the world.

Somiah Lattimore, founding and senior director of the CIE Initiative, worked with students on developing their pitches and story arcs. “I am beyond impressed with their work ethic, rapid individual and team growth, coachability, creativity, and willingness to take risks in their stories, showcasing humor and charisma,” she said. 

First up was Misoza, a sweet and tangy miso product focused on versatility. The student team said it could be used on many foods, including salads, breakfast burritos, and mashed potatoes. The pitch was accompanied by a musical rendition of the name performed by the Richmond Octaves student a cappella group.

Business major Trey Creamer opened for Envee — a play off the word “envy”— sharing an anecdote about the origins of that team’s product. It all began with the accidental mixing of his mom’s pesto pasta with a side Caesar salad on his way back to school.

The third product was Hazzah, a dressing that combined global flavors with harissa, a North African spice. “Every other spice is overused these days. Isn’t it time for something beyond chipotle and paprika?” asked business major Isaac Elias.

Another group of students wore maroon berets and black t-shirts emblazoned with the word Rumélle. “It’s a fusion of two cultures, combining French sophistication and Middle Eastern vibrancy in one bottle,” said Claire Binkley, a leadership studies and rhetoric & communication studies double major. The product combined French vinaigrette olive oil, shallots, and mustard with pomegranate and cardamom.

Once the presentations were over, the judges announced Envee had won the competition.

“Hearing Envee be named the winner was so rewarding,” said Lindsay Batten, a leadership studies major. “But I was absolutely blown away by the other teams. We knew we were up against the toughest of competition.”

Mier said the judges described their task as unenviable. “These are four true leaders in their fields and they were amazed at what the UR students had created in such a compressed amount of time,” he said.

“The judges chose Envee because it was the product they could see generating the broadest and strongest initial interest.”

Envee team members Batten, Creamer, Sophia Devlin, a business major, and Grace Maclean, a rhetoric & communication studies major, will be joined by their classmates during the second semester, as they work to get the product to market. This includes manufacturing and marketing the salad dressing, finding local retailers to sell the product, and developing a fully functional e-commerce website for nationwide orders.

“We are so excited to see Envee on the shelves and bring it to the public,” Batten said.