This post is by Grace Hertel, a marketing intern here at the Opus College of Business.
From left, Tom Broich of Plymouth, Kamal Mohamed of Minneapolis and Kevin Walker of Grand Rapids hope to replicate Spain’s annual tomato fight in Afton. Photo by Bruce Bisping, Star Tribune
Three Opus College of Business students have taken their entrepreneurial, marketing and business skills to new and interesting heights by organizing 15,000 people to throw 200,000 pounds of overripe tomatoes.
Why? Well, it might be said that Kamal Mohamed, Kevin Walker and Tom Broich have a sixth sense about such things: They see red people.
The trio of young entrepreneurs are the driving force behind Midwest Tomato Fest. It’s a planned daylong celebration that includes food and music set for July 31 at the Afton Alps Recreation Area and will culminate with tons of fruit-turned-ammunition being deployed in a sodden, crimson-soaked donnybrook.
Mohamed, with one year left at St. Thomas, along with Walker and Broich—recent UST grads—have been planning this day long celebration since January, when Mohamed learned about the original Spanish tomato fight during a J-term trip to India. La Tomatina, held every year in Buñol, Spain, is a village-wide tomato fight that has inspired similar events all over the world and intrigued Mohamed enough to bring the idea back to his roommates in St. Paul.
