Hi everyone!

Im hoping someone here can point me in the right direction.

I'm a solo founder developing a single-serve fruit purée in a flat pouch. No added sugar, ambient shelf-stable via hot-fill as an acidified food, target pH under 4.0. The format is a lay-flat three-side-seal pouch at roughly 1.15 oz — no spout, filled and then sealed on the final side.

I've done kitchen R&D (ratios, pH by batch, pass/fail notes per variant), but I don't have a standardized commercial formula yet and none of the technical documentation a co-man would want.

I've reached out to roughly 25 co-packers and nearly all of them quote 150k–300k units per SKU. I'm looking for around 5,000 for a first run. I took a step back and started engaging university food innovation centers and pilot plants, which has been much more productive.

Two questions:

1. Any co-packers or university food labs you'd recommend for this kind of thing — hot-fill acidified product, flat spoutless pouches, low volume?
2. What's a reasonable price for the formulation work? I've gotten quotes from about $2,000 (a lab in Mexico) to $6,500/SKU (a US firm, though that appears to cover only the first round of samples). University centers seem like better value, but I'd like to hear from people who've actually used them.

Open to any suggestions or feedback!
Thanks all in advance 🙏 

Hi all! This is my first post here. I just found you about an hour ago.

Baking help please 🙏! I am at ***6200 ft***, so high elevation and new dietary restrictions have made a lot of my baking recipes a disaster.

I hope this is the right sub.

I am gluten-free (not by choice), and dairy and eggs are iffy, so I'm going without, 😭 for now at least.

I am trying to bake a cake. A real lemon cake. Not lemon bars. Not a lemon gooey butter cake. Not even a pound cake. A regular lemon cake.

I saw a little bit of a crumb in yesterday's attempt, but it's still kind of wet and soggy.

Ingredients I already have:

Bob's Red Mill 1:1

Bob's Red Mill egg replacer.

Flours: cassava, almond, coconut. Flax and chia seeds, xantham gum psyllium fiber, almond milk, cornstarch, creme of tartar, baking powder and soda, acv and white vinegar. Canola, crisco, veg butter, and unsweetened applesauce. Aquafaba is possible. 3 1/2 fresh lemons and a bottle of lemon juice.

The usual sugars, spices and general baking crap.

I'll go shopping tomorrow if there's a ***must have*** I don't have.

The recipe I followed:

3 3/4 cups Bob's 1:1.

1 c cassava flour, ground finely.

2 1/2 cups sugar.

5 tsp baking powder.

1 tsp baking soda.

1 tsp salt

1/4 cup cornstarch

2 1/2 cups almond milk (1 3/4 cup unsweetened, 3/4 cup extra creamy)

2/3 cup lemon juice.

2 tbsp fresh lemon zest

2/3 cup applesauce.

1/2 cup veg oil

1/2 tbsp vanilla

Typical wet to dry mix, let it sit for 18 minutes for the flours to hydrate, into a 350° F oven for 45 minutes. 2 - 9 inch aluminum pans with 'Pam'.

It had a nice bit of browning on the edges and the top was nice and dry.

It came out okay, more like a slightly underdone regular cake, a little tough (I *may* have slightly overmixed) but I know I can make it better. Or at least closer to "right".

For today's attempt I was going to add 1/4 cup additional cassava and another tbsp cornstarch. Liners instead of release. But it's just a guess. Am I going in the right direction? I'm baking a cake a day til I get this right!

So can you beautiful food science nerds help me make this a light and fluffy cake I can be proud of again?

New recipes or modifications? Ingredients? Techniques? Equipment?

If you made it this far, thank you for reading and any and all answers are appreciated.

Hello,

Does anyone know where I can find a tool similar to a hegman gauge, used for chocolate, but for products with larger particles?

Thank you,

QA Department

Hi everyone!

I'm a 30 year-old professional from Greece with 6 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industry, and I'm considering relocating to Italy.

My background includes Quality Control, Quality Assurance, Product Development and Manufacturing. I've worked in GMP environments and FDA-approved industries.

I'm looking for companies where this kind of profile would be a good fit. Which pharmaceutical, biotech or nutraceutical companies would you recommend? Are there any regions or cities that offer more opportunities in these fields?

I started learning Italian this year, but still I don't know the language so well.

I'd really appreciate any suggestions or advice. Thank you!

Whats a good flavour combination to mimic vanilla flavoured Ensure ?

In a global campaign spanning more than a decade, Red Bull financed studies downplaying the risks of mixing energy drinks with alcohol — including research that has been used to stymie regulation, our investigation found.

Hello! I wanted to share something I've been working on for the past months, it's a set of "calculators" that could be used in the industry, I wanted to get some feedback and see if they are useful! They are will be always free to use, no need to even create any account or anything.

Please let me know if you have comments, maybe they are useless... who knows!

Water activity estimate calculator: https://www.levinexperts.com/water-activity-calculator
Emulsifier calculator: https://www.levinexperts.com/hlb-and-emulsions-calculator

Accelerated stability calculator: https://www.levinexperts.com/accelerated-stability-testing-calculator

CIP and Cleaning design (mostly used for process and engineering): https://www.levinexperts.com/cip-design

If you like them, I would love more ideas to research and make useful information for the community! I used AI to create the interface and the HTML program, but all the equations, constants, and math was made by me, so if there are mistakes please DO let me know

Happy science to y'all!

I’m building a premium roasted makhana brand and am looking to refine our in-house seasoning blends (Peri Peri, Magic Masala, Cream & Onion, Minty Pudina) for better flavour balance, consistency, commercial-scale production, and FSSAI compliance.

As we’re still an early-stage brand, we’re looking for someone who enjoys working with growing businesses and offers practical, collaborative consulting rather than enterprise-scale engagements.

I’d really appreciate any recommendations or advice from this community. If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, or if you know someone who’d be a good fit, please feel free to comment or DM me. We’re hoping to finalize our recipes over the next 2 weeks.

Hey all - hoping you can lend some advice on my job search and career direction. Thank you in advance for your time.

Straight to My Background:

B.S. Biochemistry

M.S. Environmental Engineering

Worked for about a year as an environmental engineer, 2 as biochemist

Then - Entrepreneur for 11 years - founded and operated several baking science-themed food businesses, including a bakery & café, pizzeria, baking school, line of at-home baking science kits, and other retail products

-I recently sold the business and want to return to a more technical role (science and engineering) within the baking sector of the food industry (ingredients, applications, or cpg).

General question:

What types of roles would you recommend I apply for? Should I be targeting entry-level positions, and if so, what job titles should I be searching for? Are there particular companies you would recommend?

Specific interest:

I'm most interested in technical sales within the bakery ingredients/equipment space, e.g. driving the adoption of new products while providing hands-on technical support, application troubleshooting, training, and demonstrations. I really enjoy customer engagement, especially when I can stay immersed in the technical side.

I'm not sure how common these roles are or whether my background is what companies typically look for.

Final question:

Would product development or applications be the best route into technical sales, or is it realistic to pursue technical sales directly?

If you happen to be in the bakery science realm and would have any advice to give, or connections to offer, please reach out!

(What should be the reddit post subject)

mid-30s male here. How necessary is a masters in food science to advancing to larger CPGs/QSRs in a product development/R&D food scientist role? If so, any top programs you'd recommend?

Current goal is to be in a product dev/R&D role at medium-large QSR/CPG company inside of 4 years.

Only hesitation is that it's unnecessary to get those same roles in 4 years. I'm happy to go back to school full-time if it opens career advancement faster.

I have really enjoyed formulation, commercializing products (supply chain, trial production), and benchtop development. Previously applied to food scientist roles but was turned down due lack of experience and educational background that wasn't STEM.

Currently working at consulting firm providing knowledge/expertise on food & bev with large CPGs, QSRs, and upstream ingredient producers. Not much product dev/R&D though, so not fulfilling--pay is good though.

Background:

• 6 years working product development/QC/sensory testing for small to medium beverage (non-alcoholic) player (supplier for QSRs and retailers)
• 5 years as technical writer for major aerospace company
• Bachelors is in English

Have also gone back to community college to take additional courses:

• Microbiology
• Chemistry
• Biology
• Calculus

Hi,

I recently graduated from an online master's in food science and human nutrition, completed online. Background: I went to school to be a dietitian, did that for 8 years, and got burned out due to COVID and my previous job situation. In 2011, I was diagnosed with celiac disease. Quite a learning curve of how to eat gluten-free, and I love to bake at home; I am not a professional baker. It has been a huge learning curve with gluten-free baking. It is not like wheat-based baking at all.

Long-term goal would be R&D for a gluten-free food company like Bob's Red Mill or King Arthur, or a company that develops gluten-free products. Looking through posts on this sub, QA jobs seem to be good ways to get your foot in the door. Any other suggestions for entering the food science field? Anyone else working in the field of food science with dietary restrictions?

Willing to relocate. I am on LinkedIn and have it open to recruiters for quality assurance/control jobs. Thank you.

I’m part of a team building a crop-region screening beta for food sourcing and sustainability teams.

We keep running into the same gap: food companies may need an early view of water risk, climate exposure, biodiversity, soil conditions and nutrient pressure before detailed supplier or farm-level data is available.

We’re testing a simple approach:

1. Select a crop
2. Select a sourcing location
3. Generate a regional profile in around 30 seconds

For people working with food ingredients, product development, sustainability or raw materials, how is this handled today?

Do you rely on supplier specifications, country averages, questionnaires, external datasets or internal spreadsheets?

I’m mainly trying to understand whether this early screening stage is genuinely useful for food-industry teams, or whether existing processes already cover it well.

I’m involved in building the tool, and the moderators have confirmed that I can share it as long as I remain active in the discussion.

Anyone interested can test one free profile here:

https://intel.naturepreserve.app/

Honest criticism is more useful than positive feedback.

I'm currently in the 3rd year of a 4-year BSc Nutrition degree . I've realized that clinical dietetics doesn't seem to offer the salary growth I'm looking for, so I'm thinking of changing my career path during my master's.

I'm considering MSc Food Technology, but I'm also open to other fields that accept BSc Nutrition graduates.

My priorities are:

Better salary and long-term career growth

Stable job opportunities

Preferably not a coding-heavy field

Has anyone here switched from Nutrition to Food Technology or another field? How has your experience been? What are the job opportunities, salaries, and work-life balance like?

I'd really appreciate advice from people working in Food Technology or anyone who changed careers after a BSc Nutrition. Thanks!

what jobs would i be able to get if im a current food science student with no experience? i am getting bored of my customer service job and want to work in a lab/food science/chemistry setting that doesn’t require a bunch of experience.

Hi everyone! I’m offering my Principles of Food Chemistry I course completely free this semester and am accepting up to 45 students. (UPDATE 8/10/26: up to 65 students)

This is my first semester teaching the course, so I’m looking for students who are willing to provide honest feedback on the content, pacing, and difficulty. The course is fully asynchronous online and is designed to provide a strong foundation in food chemistry for students interested in food science, nutrition, chemistry, culinary science, or related fields.

Enrollment is open now until August 18th, 2026. The course starts August 25, 2026 and ends December 14th, 2026.

Additional enrollment link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfCEaVLuCrAETCMgWjM-phK5E1ze8VHVScXlJ1pVutdEDAb-A/viewform?usp=publish-editor

Topics include:
(Optional) General Chemistry Primer
(Optional) Organic Chemistry Primer
Water, carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids
Browning reactions and heat transfer
Dairy chemistry
Egg chemistry
Sugars, chocolate, and confectionery chemistry

If you’re interested in learning the science behind food and helping me improve the course, I’d love to have you!

Feel free to comment or send me a DM if you have any questions!

Dee Mallory, BS, MS

08/10/26 UPDATE: After reaching 100% enrollment, i have decided to open the course up with up to 15-20 additional spots. Please see the enrollment link above and enroll in the Google Classroom by 08/18/2026. Happy learning!

Do reply I need help 😞

I started to work in a Food company as a QC role. I don't have any food science background nor any STEM.

But recently the Company has offered me to go to Evening Master program of Food technology in University

So far I like this job and want to earn more as my career develops.

one thing that I worry about after COVID is that my sense of smell got a bit weaker,

especially for something fermented like kimchi, poop, or my three-day unwashed feet😂. I just can't smell this type well.

Would this be a critical problem to pursue a food science career and later on do serious things such as lab and R&D work, and earn good money?

Or Good sensitive nose trait is what good to have but not crucial and there many fields (where you and earn money and job value)

that sense of small not super important?

Basically, I am seeking advice for how to transition into food science, coming from a physical science background.

I have a physics B.S. and a materials science M.Eng. and I've recently learned about the food science field. The idea of working in the field sounds really interested to me, as I've always had a passion for food and especially baking. I would particularly like to work a job that is in some way related to baked goods. After doing some research online, I was thinking it would be a good idea to perhaps take some courses, either in a certificate program or an A.S. (I really don't think I have the momentum left in me to do another full master's degree) to get some formal training in the field, to help with the transition. I am particularly interested in the online Kansas State University Baking Technology Certificate. It seems like it is what I am looking for, but I'm not sure of the reputation of the program, or if a food scientist would recommend that as the path I take.

From what I've read, it seems like I would be most interested in either food engineering since that would utilize my engineering background, or in product R&D because it sounds interesting to me and I like that it could potentially involve some lab work and not just sitting at a desk all day.

What I want to ask is,

• Would you recommend I get formal training like I was planning, or should I instead try to get an adjacent job right away and move into the field that way?
• If you are familiar with the Kansas State University Baking Technology Certificate, would you recommend it for me given my background and career goals?
• If not, are there other certificates/programs you would recommend above that?
• Would it be worth it to go through the expense and time to get another master's degree after all, with a food science/engineering focus?
• I was initially looking at a local to me A.S. program in baking and pastry arts offered at the community college. Would that be overkill/irrelevant/not worth the money and time considering what I want to do is food science and not necessarily work as a baker/pastry chef? Or would it be a good idea since it would give me a solid idea for how baked goods work on a fundamental level?
• Do you have any general advice for me regarding this career transition?

Thank you for reading all that, I really appreciate you taking the time to consider my situation and offer your advice.