Students from Kunitake's seminar help reduce food waste by supporting farmers in Sanmu City with strawberry sales that are also a big hit on campus

Students harvesting in a greenhouse

Students weighing and sorting

The "Strawberry Picking Project" is being carried out by the seminar (supervised by Professor Yoko Kunitake) of the Department of Management Sciences Faculty of Management and Information Sciences and Information Science, which is working to solve local issues. Professor Kunitake and the seminar students gather early in the morning two days a week in April, and in cooperation with Nagomi Ichigoen (Sammu City, Chiba Prefecture), they harvest about 3 kg of strawberries and sell them at the cafeteria on the Chiba Togane Campus.
Professor Kunitake and his seminar students have been participating in the "Working Group for Local Consumption of Locally Produced Products" of the "Sanmu Economic Gardening Promotion Council" since last year. Up until now, they have worked with producers in the area to develop menus using local ingredients, and have conducted sales and purchaser analysis. This project began at the request of Waichigoen, a member of the Working Group.

Group photo of the representative of Washigoen and the seminar students

Students packing items for sale

In fact, strawberries can be harvested until early May, but as temperatures rise, they ripen quickly and distribution becomes difficult. This is also the time when demand falls, and after the peak season, it becomes difficult to secure workers, and the amount that can be sold decreases. In order to alleviate this labor shortage and food waste, seminar students help with the harvesting and sorting work free of charge from 6am before the temperature rises, and they are provided with strawberries that do not meet the standards that would normally be discarded, which are then washed, packaged, and sold on campus. This agricultural support project is carried out.
 

Sales students

Strawberries displayed for sale

The students harvested and sold the strawberries over a seven-day period in April, experiencing the difficulties of harvesting, and even after harvesting they put what they learned in Faculty of Management and Information Sciences into practical use, calculating costs and managing shifts. The students worked on the project while considering the business side of things, using containers with lids that were easy to carry, making it easy to purchase, and setting prices with profit in mind. In addition, to make it enjoyable for the buyers, they explained the characteristics of each strawberry variety, such as Tochiotome, Chibaberry, Star Night, Hoshi Urara, Akihime, and Kuro Ichigo, as they sold them. The students' ingenuity led to results such as the strawberries selling out in just one day.
One student who participated in the harvesting and sales said, "I got a real feel for how hard it is for farmers. I'm happy that I can contribute even a little through this activity."

They will also be available for sale near the register at LUNA Café on Friday, April 26th and Tuesday, April 30th.
The students are also planning to freeze overripe strawberries for summer and use them in menu development. We plan to continue reporting on the activities of this project in the future.