Last month, four students from BYU-Idaho attended the Idaho Milk Processors Association competition in Sun Valley and won fourth place. They created a carbonated ice cream called Sparks.
The Idaho Milk Processors Association, also known as IMPA, is a non-profit organization that seeks to promote the Idaho dairy industry. They hold a competition where student teams from universities across the country present new and unique milk products. This year, teams were required to make a new product which was made of at least 51% dairy ingredients.
Faculty Advisor Steve Winkel teaches the capstone class called product development. He explained the process of creating the product.
“We had a team of four students that decided they wanted to compete so they came up with a dairy product that was pretty unique and did all the preparation work and the applications and then we attended the competition where it was presented by one of the students Madison Bunker,” he said.
Madison Bunker is a senior at BYU-Idaho and explained what this competition meant to her.
““It was a good opportunity to really understand the industry better and the problems that they’re facing. And at the same time to network,” Bunker said. “It was kind of a great opportunity to just kind of understand what the industry is going to look like when I’m graduated.”
BYU-Idaho was the only undergraduate team at the competition. Brigham Young University’s food science team won first place with a grand prize of $10,000. Utah State University won second place and $5,000, South Dakota State University won third and $3,000 and BYU-Idaho won fourth place and $2,000.
Students who take the capstone class get to choose whether or not they compete.
“I think it’s an excellent opportunity for students to gain some extra experience being able to participate in an event like this and prepare a presentation and the application information that had to be created,” Winkel said.
IMPA holds competitions every year. For more information, visit IMPA.us.