| Course | SUST 5013 People First: Creating Value Beyond Profit |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 5 |
| Paper type | People and community impact recommendations |
| Length | 1,220 words, about 4 pages plus title and reference pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | American College of Education |
| Program | M.S. in Organizational Leadership |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for SUST 5013 Module 5
Five Recommendations, About $5.3 Million a Year: Improving Vital Farms' Impact on Crew, Farmers and Communities
Student Name
American College of Education
SUST5013: People First: Creating Value Beyond Profit
Module 5 Assignment
Instructor Name
October 2, 2028
Introduction
This course has examined Vital Farms from four angles: its stakeholders, its crew practices, its relationships with farmers and communities and its impact reporting. Each paper found real strengths alongside gaps. The five proposals below grow directly out of those findings. Each recommendation names the finding it answers, estimates its cost against the company's fiscal 2025 results of $759.4 million in net revenue and $66.3 million in net income (Vital Farms, Inc., 2026) and explains why it should create value for the business as well as for stakeholders.
Why Investing in Stakeholders Can Pay
Harrison et al. (2010) argued that firms which manage for stakeholders, allocating more value to legitimate stakeholders than strictly necessary, earn trust that brings better information, cooperation and innovation, and can therefore gain competitive advantage. Bridoux and Stoelhorst (2014) refined this view, proposing that a fairness-based approach works best with stakeholders who are motivated by reciprocity and when value depends on joint effort, while an arm's-length approach suits self-interested stakeholders. Vital Farms' business depends heavily on joint effort with farmers and crew, which suggests fairness-based investments are likely to be repaid.
Recommendation One: A Family Living Wage Benchmark
The crew practices paper found that hourly pay at the Missouri plant clears a living-wage line drawn for one person with no dependents, a yardstick that understates what many plant workers need. The company should adopt the living wage for one adult with one child as its floor. Assuming about 400 hourly workers and an average increase of $3 an hour for 2,080 hours, the cost would be about $2.5 million a year, roughly 0.3 percent of revenue. Research on high-performance practices suggests part of this would be recovered through lower turnover and training costs, and the commitment would fit the charter benefit of letting crew members thrive.
Recommendation Two: A Farmer Council and Renewal Commitments
The farm relationships paper found that the company's buy-sell contracts shift market and feed risk away from farmers, but that farms depend on one buyer and are most exposed at renewal. The company should create an elected farmer council that meets with management twice a year on standards, pricing formulas and accelerator farms, and should commit to offering renewal to every farm in good standing at contract end, with written reasons for any exception. Costs are modest, perhaps $300,000 a year for meetings, travel and staff time. In Bridoux and Stoelhorst's terms, these steps reward reciprocal farmers and strengthen the cooperation on which quality depends.
Recommendation Three: A Regenerative Transition Fund
The reporting assessment found that only 59 percent of farmers had taken up regenerative practices, against a target of all farmers within 2026 (Vital Farms, Inc., 2026). Farmers bear the up-front costs of changes such as rotational grazing or cover crops. A transition fund offering $5,000 grants to each of the roughly 250 farms not yet engaged would cost about $1.25 million, committed in the first year and paid out as farms complete their changes. It would help meet a public goal, support the environmental stewardship benefit in the charter and give farmers a share of the investment rather than leaving the cost entirely to them.
Recommendation Four: A Community Agreement in Seymour
The community paper found that the company followed social license practices in Missouri but described no engagement for the Indiana plant now under construction, which the 10-K says should be running fully in 2027 (Vital Farms, Inc., 2026). The company should negotiate a simple community agreement before opening, covering local hiring targets, traffic routes and hours, water use reporting, a named community liaison and an annual public meeting. Costs, including a part-time liaison and modest community grants, might reach $250,000 a year. Securing local acceptance before problems arise is cheaper than repairing a relationship after opposition forms.
Recommendation Five: An Annual People Data Table
Every earlier paper found that key measures were missing from public documents. The company should publish a one-page table each year in its impact report covering crew turnover and injury rates, the plant wage floor compared with the family living wage, farm entries and exits, the share of contracts renewed, mean payment to each farm, regenerative engagement and community hiring at each plant. Gathering and checking these figures, with limited outside assurance, might cost $1 million a year. Disclosure creates accountability for the other four recommendations and responds to research showing that selective reporting erodes trust.
Total Cost and Affordability
The ongoing recommendations, the wage floor, farmer council, community agreement and data table, would cost about $4.05 million a year, and the regenerative fund a one-time $1.25 million, bringing the first-year total to roughly $5.3 million. That equals about 0.7 percent of 2025 net revenue and about 8 percent of net income. The cost is meaningful but affordable for a company growing as quickly as this one, and part of it, especially the wage floor, should be offset by lower turnover. Stockholders bear the cost in the short run, which the board's balancing duty allows it to weigh against benefits to others.
Sequencing
The recommendations should be adopted in an order that builds trust and evidence. In the first six months, the company should publish the people data table using existing figures and announce the farmer council, both of which cost little and signal intent. The wage floor should follow at the next annual pay review. The regenerative fund should launch in time to support farms before the end-of-2026 goal. The Seymour agreement should be completed before the plant opens. This sequence lets early disclosures establish baselines against which the later investments can be judged.
Risks and Objections
Three objections are likely. Investors may argue that higher costs reduce returns; the response is that the total is under 1 percent of revenue and partly offset, and that the company's charter commits it to balance. Managers may worry that a farmer council will slow decisions; it would advise rather than decide. Some may fear that publishing turnover or renewal data invites criticism. Research on disclosure suggests the opposite risk is larger: stakeholders tend to read silence as concealment, and voluntary candor builds credibility over time.
Measuring Success
Success will show in the data table itself. Within two years, the company should see plant turnover falling, farm renewal rates above 90 percent, all farms engaged in regenerative practices, local hires making up most of the Seymour workforce and no unexplained gaps between its reports and its filings. The B Lab Workers and Community scores at the next recertification offer an outside check. If these measures do not move, the board should review whether each recommendation is working, as its own benefit reporting obligations require.
Conclusion
Vital Farms already does more for its stakeholders than most food companies, but this course found gaps in pay benchmarks, farmer voice, support for regenerative change, engagement in new communities and disclosure. Five recommendations address them at a first-year cost of about $5.3 million, under 1 percent of revenue. Research on managing for stakeholders and on fairness suggests these investments should strengthen the cooperation with crew, farmers and communities on which the company's premium product depends. Adopting them would bring its practice closer to the six public benefits written into its charter.
References
Bridoux, F., & Stoelhorst, J. W. (2014). Microfoundations for stakeholder theory: Managing stakeholders with heterogeneous motives. Strategic Management Journal, 35(1), 107-125. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.2089
Harrison, J. S., Bosse, D. A., & Phillips, R. A. (2010). Managing for stakeholders, stakeholder utility functions, and competitive advantage. Strategic Management Journal, 31(1), 58-74. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.801
Vital Farms, Inc. (2026). Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 28, 2025. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1579733/000119312526073423/vitl-20251228.htm
The SUST 5013 Module 5 assignment instructions
The final SUST 5013 paper usually asks for recommendations to improve a company's impact on people and communities. Expect to draw each recommendation from findings in earlier modules, such as the stakeholder map, employee practices, supplier and community relationships and the benefit report. Most prompts reward recommendations that are specific, costed with stated assumptions and sequenced, and that explain why they should create value for the business as well as stakeholders. Address likely objections and set measures of success. Use the company's financial results to test affordability, and cite research and company documents in APA 7. Avoid recommending what the company already does unless you propose a clear improvement to it. Group recommendations by stakeholder so readers can see who benefits from each.
Inside the SUST 5013 Module 5 example
The sample opens with research on managing for stakeholders and fairness-based approaches. Five recommendations follow, each tied to an earlier paper: a living wage benchmark for a parent with one child at about $2.5 million a year, a farmer council and renewal commitment, $5,000 transition grants for about 250 farms, a community agreement before the Indiana plant opens and a data table of people measures. A cost total compares about $5.3 million with revenue and net income. Sequencing, objections and measures of success, including B Lab area scores, complete the paper. Assumptions behind every estimate are stated in the text.
Reading the SUST 5013 Module 5 rubric
Recommendation papers are graded on grounding, specificity and feasibility. Graders look for recommendations clearly drawn from earlier findings, described concretely enough to adopt and supported by research explaining their value. Cost estimates with stated assumptions, compared with the company's actual results, are often credited, as are sequencing and responses to objections. Recommendations that repeat generic responsibility ideas, ignore cost or lack measures of success tend to score lower. Tie each recommendation to the stakeholder it serves and to the company's stated public benefits, and cite all sources accurately in APA 7, including the filing used for financial comparisons. Clear sequencing, with low-cost steps first, also shows practical judgment.
SUST 5013 Module 5 help: mistakes that cost points
Final recommendation papers pull together a whole course, and costing them is where many students get stuck. We can help you turn earlier findings into specific recommendations, estimate costs with clear assumptions and compare them with the company's results. If you share what your earlier papers found and the prompt, we can build a recommendation paper grounded in stakeholder research and company data. Benefit corporations in food, retail, apparel and finance all work. Most papers are ready within two days, and every cost estimate shows its assumptions so you can adjust them with your own figures. Privately held companies work too; costs can then be estimated from industry wage and payroll data and the company's own benefit report.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official American College of Education document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.
More SUST 5013 and M.S. in Organizational Leadership sample papers
- SUST 5013 Module 1: Vital Farms Stakeholder Map
- SUST 5013 Module 2: Vital Farms Crew Practices
- SUST 5013 Module 3: Vital Farms Farms and Communities
- SUST 5013 Module 4: Vital Farms Impact Reporting
- DIV 5023 Module 1: Forms and Effects of Favoritism
- HRM 5463 Module 2: Performance Management Plan
- LEAD 5673 Module 2: Applying a Code of Ethics
- SUST 5003 Module 5: Social Enterprise Transformation
SUST 5013 Module 5 questions, answered
What does SUST5013 Module 5 usually ask for?
The last SUST5013 module usually asks for recommendations to improve a company's impact on people and communities, with costs, priorities and measures.
How detailed should cost estimates be?
Detailed enough to show the assumptions, such as number of workers and amount per hour, so the reader can test them against the company's financial results.
Why might investing in stakeholders pay off?
Research on managing for stakeholders suggests that fair treatment builds trust, cooperation and information sharing, which can create competitive advantage.
Where can I find a free SUST 5013 Module 5 sample paper?
This page has one: five costed recommendations for Vital Farms, from a family living wage to a farmer council, totaling about $5.3 million in the first year.
Should recommendations come from earlier modules?
Yes. Recommendations that answer specific findings from your earlier papers are more convincing than general ideas about corporate responsibility.