Chavira said her products are very fragile and finding the perfect package was a tough task on her own.

“There’s lots of boxes of cupcakes,” she said. “I wanted to (have) something unique.”

The students were part of a capstone course in the MSU School of Packaging called Package System Development, taught by packaging professor Bruce Harte. The course is one of the last courses seniors take before they graduate, and the students are helping to solve real-world packaging problems for Michigan companies, ranging from Dow Chemical Co. and General Motors Co. to the People’s Pierogi Collective, Harte said.

Don Baumdraher, a senior project engineer for GM, did both his undergraduate and master’s work at the MSU School of Packaging and said having his company participate in the program was a good way to give back to the university.

Most of the group he works with at GM are graduates from MSU, so they know the quality of the program, he said.

“I remember when I was in the program, and I remember working with an outside company in this class,” Baumdraher said. “It was exciting to be able to meet people in the field and get the experience of working with them.”

The GM representatives have seen presentations by five groups dealing with packaging for side mirrors, wheels and truck lids, he said.

“It’s our job to take the designs they give us and apply them in the packaging we use,” Baumdraher said.

Chavira said the presentation for her company was everything that she had hoped, and she hopes to implement the package design by Valentine’s Day after a few minor adjustments. She will receive a final presentation from the students at the end of the semester, she said.

“I loved it,” Chavira said. “They were laughing because I took my camera and was taking pictures — it’s the first package with my name printed on it.”

Chavira said the students visited her bakery before working on the design and took the small details she was looking for to heart. She eventually hopes to have the boxes be customizable, adding stars around Christmas time and hearts for Valentine’s Day, she said.

For entrepreneurs such as herself who work with limited resources and finances, getting the opportunity to work with students in the packaging field to solve her company’s problems was the perfect opportunity, she said.

“This feels like a great starting point,” Chavira said. “How much money would I have had to pay if had to go to another company to ask for this kind of help?”

Staff writer Kyle Campbell contributed to this report.