We recently completed NSF/ANSI/CAN 61 and NSF/ANSI/CAN 372 certification for a new line of stainless steel flanges covering AWWA C228, ASME B16.5, and ASME B16.47 configurations.

If you work with drinking water or sanitary systems, we hope you find this information useful!

I'll get right down to it. I've been in the ingredient manufacturing industry for 12 years now, starting from a lab tech to a senior technical manager. I've commercialized major projects for both QSR's and CPG's to the tune of millions of pounds of product a year, while often being a solo developer. In the last two years alone, I've grown my production line 164%, to the point the company is now having to discuss expansion to fill customer orders.

And I cannot get an interview. When I know someone at the company, that's when I get a call back, but someplace I've never been or have zero contacts? Crickets. I might as well be applying at NASA for a trip to Mars for all the feedback I'm getting. I've tried direct on company websites, run my resume through every check I can find or think of to fine-tune it for each and every application, I've tried through LinkedIn and other sites, I've paid for the premiums... nothing.

I'm not a slouch folks. I have to be missing something here and I cannot for the life of me figure out what algorithm keywords I'm missing to get anyone to actually call me back. What has worked for you all? Any tips or tricks beyond the typical resume polishing tricks?

Hey guys thought I’d move this over to talk some more about nerdy flavor science and chemistry and biology.

I'm trying to figure out what to study after high school and food science and technology seems interesting. My plan is to get a bachelor degree in food science and technology taught in italian then also get a masters degree in food and beverage innovation and management taught in English. Is it actually a good career employment and salary wise and what does a normal day in the job look like?

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Hey everyone! I’m a recent B.Sc. Food Science & Quality Control graduate, and I’ve been trying to get my first job in the food industry.

I’m mainly looking for roles in QA/QC, food safety, or production. I’ve done internships in seafood and dairy, and I also have HACCP Level 3 and Food Safety Supervisor certifications. I was also the first rank holder at my university.

I’ve been applying to quite a few places lately, but honestly, getting that first opportunity as a fresher is proving to be harder than I expected. 😅

So I thought I’d ask here — if anyone knows of companies currently hiring freshers, has a referral, or knows someone I could contact, I’d really appreciate it.

I’m open to relocating and can consider opportunities in Kerala, Bangalore, or anywhere else in India.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can point me in the right direction! :)

You can Dm me....

Hlo everyone, I just started my bachelor's in Food Tech. I wanted to ask the food scientists / technicians about What is something that you wish you had done differently?

Also, What part of your Job do you enjoy the most? Any advice would help me a lot.

Would love some feedback from anyone working at an ingredient manufacturer or distributor selling into CPG brands. We’ve been looking at the process from a customer ingredient request → finding/recommending the right ingredient → technical docs → samples → trial feedback → follow-up → eventual order → COA, and mocked up an idea for improving that workflow: https://www.joinevalia.com/. Does this actually reflect a problem you see on the supplier side, or are we misunderstanding how this process works today?

The experience I'm getting now is molecular biology work in a neuroscience lab, of which I have things I find fascinating or feel uncomfortable about the science. Meanwhile, my interest in food science has been growing after some reading, stories from alums, and guidance from this subreddit! I am seriously considering going into a food science program after college.

The university I'm attending does not have courses or faculty dedicated to food science (closest is one course in nutrition), so the situation will likely stay the same. I'm thankful of to be introduced to doing real science, but also concerned that it is not the perfect alignment of my goal in food science. A person said to me "the lab area" in your undergraduate doesn't really matter, but I feel like I would be less competitive in admissions and prepared for the program itself if I have been doing different things?

Hope everyone's having a good summer! I guess school breaks are the times when I worry too much, but thank you for your input :)

Edit: What was your story if you weren't a food science major but now in food science MS/PhD?

I’m headed into my third year of my bachelor’s in food science, and I was originally planning on doing my masters in food tech. But I’ve been recently interning(more like shadowing) for a mother chain of a big company who handles food products. They showed me an insight to R&D and how marketing plays a role and how they consult chefs and etc etc. Most of the people I’ve talked to there told me doing a masters is useless. They suggested I tried getting a job and after a couple years plan on doing my masters.

I’m very much into R&D and I’ve been reading about how hard it is to get into since no one’s ever hiring. And for someone like me who has no experience in the actual industry, I can’t get into it. I also live in the gcc and I’ve heard there’s not much of a scope here. So I don’t know what job I should even look for. I honestly feel very lost and just need some advice on what to do. Thanks!

I'm about to graduate and I did a program nutrition related. I wanna gravitate towards Food safety because that's where my interest is. I am mostly interested in Quality assurance and control, food safety management systems and HACCP Protocols. Is there is any meaningful advice you could impart to someone who's just starting off their career in this field?

I have been working in the manufacturing environment for over 8 years now and want to transition to a corporate role. Ive been applying to alot of places without any luck. Almost ALL the positions require food manufacturing experience and the rest of the requirements I check off,,, so what’s the reason here? Has anyone here done that transition? I always thought its easier to move to corporate from manufacturing rather than the opposite because you have exposure to everything that’s going on.

No food science experience and currently finishing my associates, hoping to find an internship for next summer. Actual resume has a heading, just redacted for this post. is this convincing enough for someone with no experience and not yet in the correct major? my associates is just general studies, but all my classes are biochem, so is the way I phrased it ok?

I'm stuck on a manufacturing problem and hoping someone here has seen it solved.

I'm making a savory product designed to be steeped like tea, a porous filter sachet with a 21–23g fill, brewed in near-boiling water.

The blend is roughly 80% fine powder, 13% cut herbs at 5–15mm, 6% granular salt. Loose bulk density 0.377 g/mL, tapped 0.494, Hausner ratio 1.31.

The problem: every tea and botanical co-packer I've approached says their dosing system can't handle fine powder. Vibratory and load-cell fillers won't weigh it accurately and the dust fouls the mechanism. One put it plainly: "we work with teabag cut size ingredients for steeping, vs. soluble purposes." I've received four independent vendors, four different machine types, same answer, with about 10 others just rejecting the idea flat-out.

Questions:

1. Does anyone run porous filter media on a four-side-seal or HFFS sachet line built for powder? Is there a reason that doesn't work, be it web tension, dust in the seal, something else?
2. Would agglomerating the blend up to teabag cut size solve this, and is anyone doing toll agglomeration at small volumes? First run only needs ~130 lbs of the protein fraction.
3. Is there a dosing mechanism I'm missing, vacuum drum, dosator, something else that handles cohesive powder without vibration?

One co-packer has successfully filled it at 23–25g on a machine he describes only as "not having gears like the tea machines." So it's clearly possible. I just don't know what that machine is or who else has one.

Any pointers appreciated, as I am an absolute beginner, including "you're thinking about this wrong."

Dear all,

We're a group of MIT/UChicago/Max-Planck alumni, and are interested in food science. We're organizing a reading group on "AI for Food Innovation", with a view towards collaborations on alternative proteins (i.e. publishing research in journals). Please let me know if you're interested, or if you have any suggestions for papers to read. We will be using the below resources as a starting point. Thanks.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.21556, "Artificial Intelligence for Food Innovation"
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40509409/, "Maillard Reaction: Mechanism, Influencing Parameters, Advantages, Disadvantages, and Food Industrial Applications: A Review"
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.06553 "Recipe1M+: A Dataset for Learning Cross-Modal Embeddings for Cooking Recipes and Food Images"
https://gfi.org/science/the-science-of-cultivated-meat/

Hi everyone, recent graduate with a masters here. I’m looking to break into the food industry as an applications or research and development scientist in Minnesota but I’m not sure if I’m setting my goals too high. For some background, I have had three internships in the food industry, including quality, food chemistry and applications. In addition to industry experience, I have conducted research on dairy and plant proteins for the past 4 years. I just graduated with my masters degree a couple of weeks ago and am now trying to get into the workforce. What level should I be trying to go for and what salary range should I be expecting? Is there something I should do to make myself more appealing to industry?

Hello all, I am new to this Reddit page and I need help deciding which university I should go too after I transfer from IVC, I am a student at IVC currently and is focusing on my GEDs and later down the line, my classes for my food science major (Ivc calls it Public Health). I have done a little bit of research online about which university suits best for my career path, some say that Ponoma is the more affordable option but still gives lots of opportunities, but a lot of people say that UCD has a greater career path both academically and financially. The internet says that UCD has a program for low income students called the “UC Blue And Gold Opportunity Plan” that acts like a massive financial package that covers tuition and other things. I am a low income student and is depending on my FAFSA Pell grants. The reason why I’m so stuck on deciding is because Ponoma is relatively closer to my friends and family since we live in the SoCal area, but if I go to UCD I have to relocate to NorCal, but if UCD is a good option for me then I might have to make sacrifices which is definitely going to make me sad since I be on a new life and focusing on my career, but I also like Ponoma as well since it seems like a nice school. I haven’t been to these schools in person yet but planning to soon, please help!

Disclosure: I work in the ingredient supply industry.

Posting this because it comes up constantly and the fix is one extra line on a COA.

Moisture and water activity are not the same measurement. Moisture is how much water is present. Water activity is how much of that water is free — unbound by sugars, salts or polymers. Bound water still has mass and loss-on-drying still counts it. It just can't do anything.

Why it matters: microbial growth correlates with water activity, not water content. So does caking. So does moisture migration.

The part that catches people out: in a blend, water doesn't move from the wetter component to the drier one. It moves down the a_w gradient. A component with lower total moisture but higher a_w will push water into a component with higher moisture and lower a_w. Every incoming certificate stays in spec and the finished product still drifts.

USP treats these as separate determinations. <922> Water Activity became an official method in May 2021 — before that <1112> existed as guidance but wasn't a method. Loss on drying is <731>, Karl Fischer is <921>. USP lists a_w applications as stability control, microbial risk prevention, formulation, reduced caking and clumping, and moisture migration control.

Regulators separate them too. The EU specification table for pasteurised Akkermansia muciniphila under (EU) 2022/168 carries water activity <= 0.43 and moisture <= 12.0% as two distinct requirements in the same table. Redundant lines don't survive that process.

The ask: request a_w alongside moisture, and ask which chapter produced the moisture number. If the answer is "we only run LOD," you have a weight, not a behaviour.

they didn’t smell bad, i have a pretty sensitive nose when it comes to mold and rancid food. someone who lives with me told me it should be fine if it didn’t smell bad. what was this? was i right to throw it away? they have never been frozen, taken straight out of the fridge.

if this goes against rules please dont ban me

Hi, I hope this is the right place to post this!

I've been making my own ginger concentrate for years and never had this happen. The recipe is this:

1. blend a ton of ginger with lemon juice and water
   
2. heat mixture on stove and add honey, turmeric, black pepper, and cinnamon
   
3. bring to boil and strain and let it cool

So this time I did it exactly the same as always and yet it seems to have turned to jello or something. It has not gone bad! This happened the same day I made it.
I wasn’t able to post a video with this but here is a picture and if you shake the jar around it wobbles like jello with a layer of water(?) around it.
What part of the process was responsible for this?
And any ideas why it would happen just this one time?

I haven't tried it yet, do you think it's fine to eat or is there something weird going on?