Submitted Photo South Prairie High Schools’ Food Science and Technology team is shown at the International Production & Processing Expo in Atlanta, Georgia, after securing a fourth-place win at the FFA National Convention in November. From left are Brylee Beeter, Josh Lindbo, Natalie Becker and Maddie Hogue.

Four students at South Prairie High School represented North Dakota at the FFA National Convention last November.

After winning fourth place in Food Science and Technology during convention competition, they were awarded an all-expenses-paid trip to the International Production & Processing Expo in Atlanta, Georgia.

Students Brylee Beeter, Maddie Hogue, Joshua Lindbo and Natalee Becker are all juniors at South Prairie High School, south of Minot, and are members of the school’s FFA chapter.

“The four of us competed in the food science competition at our state convention last summer,” Beeter said. “Since we ended up winning there, we were able to go and represent North Dakota and compete at the national convention in November.”

The FFA offers an abundance of fields of study and competitions for its students to choose from and each field of study can be narrowed down to very specific topics.

“In food science we learn a lot of different components of food,” Lindbo said. “We learn about calories per gram of protein, food safety, and we learn about different flavors and scents of food where we are able to taste one thing, then another, and have to be able to discern what was different between the two.”

“And then there is another part,” said Beeter, “called team product development, where each team is given a packet of information and read up on it in order to create a product for a company. At nationals we were given an hour to create a product and present it to a panel of judges.”

This competition requires students to not only create the product itself but also create a marketing plan, packaging, HashSet plans, cost of the product, and a facility overlay of how the product will be made.

“We each had our own roles at nationals,” Hogue said. “I did marketing and cost, Natalie did the HashSet plan and facilities, Brylee did nutrition facts, and Josh did packaging.”

Although they were confident in their product, Brylee, Maddie, Josh and Natalie were shocked at their fourth-place win.

“So funny story,” Beeter said. “We actually spelled hot cocoa wrong on our packaging.”

“So we were not expecting to place, ” Lindbo said. “We hoped maybe silver or gold, then we got gold and thought ‘Hey! way to go!’ and then they just kept announcing teams and we got higher and higher and finally to fourth place we heard our names called.”

The four high school juniors were not only competing against other high schoolers but college students as well.

“Going against college students, we really weren’t expecting it to go that well, ” Becker said. “But we ended up doing way better than we thought.”

After securing their win at nationals, the group was able to attend the International Production & Processing Expo.

The expo is the world’s largest annual poultry and egg, meat and animal food industry event of its kind, with more than 125 countries represented.

“North Dakota isn’t really known for poultry so it was crazy to walk in and see three massive buildings all dedicated to production and processing of poultry,” Beeter said.

Representing their state at the national level is a major accomplishment for a FFA student, let alone being able to attend the world’s largest poultry and egg event as juniors in high school.

“It was our first time even being able to go to the national convention,” Beeter said.

“Being able to compete against all of the state teams and see how different each state chapter is run was definitely my favorite part of the convention, ” Hogue said.

‘The most memorable thing to me was the look on all of our faces when they called our names. It was really amazing,” Becker said.

“I really loved being able to see how well we actually did, given the amount of teams that competed at the national level,” Beeter said.

“It’s hard for me to choose what I loved the most. It was all so new and a little overwhelming,” Lindbo said. “I’m just a country kid from North Dakota so it was really cool to see the city and meet so many people from all over the country. The whole experience, from nationals to the expo, was just really fun.”