Insights and Innovation Manager (Food Scientist) Uses Sensory Science to Create the Drinks You Love, with Nikki Wollak

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Nikki Wollak (00:00):
The customers that we work with are everything

(00:02):
from, you know, private labelfor stores to food service
companies to some of the biggestCPG brands that you're probably
already buying, and we're kindof the ones behind the scenes.
So the trends that we share withthem, or the feedback that we
help give them end up coming tolife in the products that you
see on the shelf six nine monthslater. So we might do something

(00:22):
on nostalgic flavors beingtrendy, and things like sherbet
and popsicles and creamsiclesbeing things that people love,
or candy flavors that arethrowbacks. And then six months
later, you might see things onthe shelf that have those
flavors. Because we sawnostalgia as a trend, and it's
now manifested in the productsthat we've developed.

Julie Berman - Host (00:47):
Hey everybody, I'm Julie, and
welcome to Women with cool jobs.
Each episode will feature womenwith unique, trailblazing and
innovative careers. We'll talkabout how she got here, what
life is like now, and actionablesteps that you can take to go on
a similar path, or one that'sall your own. This podcast is

(01:08):
about empowering you. It's aboutempowering you to dream big and
to be inspired. You'll hear fromincredible women in a wide
variety of fields, and hopefullysome that you've never heard of
before, women who build robotsand roadways, firefighters, C
suite professionals surroundedby men, social media mavens,

(01:29):
entrepreneurs and more. I'm soglad we get to go on this
journey together. Hello,everybody. This is Julie Berman,
and welcome to another episodeof women with cool jobs. So
today, this is one of theepisodes that I just I love
learning about the things thatyou never thought to think

(01:51):
about. And I I think about,sometimes we walk into the
grocery store and we're pickingout the things that we want,
whether it's for specific meal,whether it's for for me, like, I
always love going places,especially like even home goods
or other like other places, likeTrader Joe's that just have
really interesting foods thatchange often. And I love

(02:13):
discovering new things. I thinkof it as like an adventure, like
a discovery, and I'm on atreasure hunt. So I just love
these types of things. And sothinking about this in relation
to this next episode of womenwith cool jobs that you're
listening to with the amazingNikki Wallach, it's really
fascinating to think about thethings that we see on the

(02:35):
shelves in our grocery storesand other places where we make
purchases for food and drink. SoNikki Wallach has a really cool
job. She is the insights andinnovation manager, and she
focuses on sensory and marketinsights and new ingredient
innovations for a flavor andbeverage development company. So
essentially, this means that shethinks about the ways that

(02:58):
consumers want to have theirfoods, how they want to
experience them, like what thesensory experience is going to
be, how they taste, how theysmell, you know? How do they
feel? So she's paid to eat anddrink things, and then she's
observing what others arethinking about and experiencing
as they eat and drink things andcollecting their feedback. So

(03:20):
she works with scientists. Sheworks with creators who are
creating these, these food anddrinks. She's running taste
tests, she's conducting researchstudies, and she's identifying
trends. So she's thinking aboutthings like, what flavors are
going to be popular a year ortwo from now? She is really
amazing at being the voice ofthe consumer, and so she has

(03:42):
essentially, like an influenceover the types of products that
get made, which is really, it'sreally fascinating to think
about, because she's thinkingabout, like, Okay, if we're in
March of 2025 what are theproducts that you're maybe going
to be wanting to drink A yearfrom now, and like, forecasting
that out. So it's really, Imean, isn't that interesting to

(04:04):
think about? And then the otherthing is, is that she has a
really unique combination ofeducation and experience. So she
got her Bachelor's in foodscience from Michigan State
University, and then she got amaster's in integrated marketing
communications from Northwesternand what's really fascinating is
you listen to this interview, isthat she's a phenomenal

(04:24):
communicator. She's a phenomenalstoryteller, and her ability to
not only understand the nuancesand the details in the science
and like, be able to translatethat and then communicate it to
people who don't have thatbackground, and to be able to
say, like, Okay, well, this iswhat you know, we can help you
create on the science side ofthings, and this is the sensory

(04:45):
experience that people are goingto have, and this is why I think
we should do it. And then on theflip side, being able to say to
the people who are creating it,like, this is why I think people
are going to love it andtranslate that in a way that
makes sense. Sense, being ableto communicate in a really
understandable, relatable,simple way is such a powerful
tool thinking about, how do wehow do we consume things as just

(05:09):
like an everyday person? Why dowe choose the things that we're
choosing when we go to thegrocery store, when I go to some
place like home goods and seeall their fun foods, or like
Trader Joe's what? What do Ithink of? And then, like, what
is that experience in relationlike, does it match what I
thought it was going to be? Andthe fact that she talks about in
this interview that there are somany different types of mango

(05:31):
flavor, like, there's just somany options that I never even
really thought to think of. Andyet, she considers this with all
the things that they create,whether it's like drinks or
food. So such a fascinatingepisode. And if you do end up
liking this episode, go back andlisten to also my episode, where
I interview an ice creamscientist. It's really fantastic

(05:53):
and also so interesting, alongthe same lines of like, how do
we create the flavors of thefoods and drinks that we eat and
love. So I hope you enjoy thisepisode, and if you do, please
make sure that you are sharingit with a friend who you think
might love it, who might find itso inspiring and fascinating.
Thanks so much for being hereand enjoy this episode with

(06:14):
Nikki Wallach, hello, everybody.
This is Julie Berman, andwelcome to another episode of
women with cool jobs. So I havea wonderful guest for you all
today. I'm so excited tointroduce Nikki Wallach, and she
has a super cool job. So she isa food scientist. She her
official title is an insightsand innovation manager, and you

(06:36):
focus on sensory and marketinsights and new ingredient
innovations at a flavor andbeverage development company. So
thank you for being on thepodcast. Thank you

so much for having me. So I want to have you
describe

a little bit like when people ask you,
what is your job? Like, what doyou do? How do you describe it
to people?

That's a great question. So a lot of times,
I'll start with just groundingthem in an experience they
understand. So when you go to astore and you pick up a beverage
on the shelf, and that beveragehas flavors in it, someone is
creating those flavors andingredients that are going into
that product, and that's what mycompany does. So my role is to
help make them as delicious aspossible, and collect data to

(07:23):
help us inform those decisionsof how to make the best product
we can. So essentially, as asensory and insight scientist,
I'm creating taste tests ordoing interviews and figuring
out what exactly is it thatpeople want and what makes
things taste great, and then howdo we translate that into a
product that they really love.

Wow. Okay, that was a great explanation.
Thank you. And when you So, whenyou do this job like I'm
curious, what are, you know, thekinds of people you're working
with, because it seems like youdo work, you know, not only with
potential customers. What? Whatare the other sort of groups of
people who you collaborate withto do this work?

That's a really good question. So right now, the
company I work for, we supplyingredients, so we do business
to business a lot, which meansthere are lots of different
stakeholders. So obviously, thebrands that we work with and the
people who work at thosecompanies are our stakeholders,
and we do research with them onwhat they like and what they
mean when they say they want anew orange flavored product. But

(08:25):
we also then get to work with,sometimes directly, consumers,
so people who consume thoseproducts and understanding what
they like, as well as within thecompany, I have a lot of cross
functional partners who I workwith. So sensory and insights
kind of toes that line betweenmarketing and science, where I'm
kind of the voice of theconsumer, and I'm making sure
that what we're doing isrelevant and saleable, so more

(08:47):
marketing driven things, but Ialso need to be able to
communicate with people who areflavorists and product
developers to help them refinethe products that they're making
and make them really great, andtake those learnings and
translate them to the chemicalcompounds that go into the
flavors, or the exact recipesand formulas that we create. So
it's a little bit of our alittle bit of science. And the

(09:09):
best part of it is that you doget to interact with that many
different groups, and it's areally fun social role that
helps explain and connect and doa lot of storytelling to get
people on the same page. Wow,

yeah, it sounds like it. That's so
interesting. It's, it'sinteresting to think about all
those different, I guess, likecomponents is not quite the word
I want, but it's the one that'scoming to mind. So I'll go with
it. But like all the differentsort of components that go into
your job, but also, like thedifferent people in the
different roles that you'recoordinating with, and, yeah,

(09:42):
that that, like, you have sortof different functions, even
within your role of, like, whoyou're talking to and for what
purpose. So, yeah, thank you forsuch a great explanation. Right,
like, right from the beginning,that was so wonderful. You
mentioned the idea that you getto, like, Help, kind of taste
things. Just all day, and it waslike such a fun part of your

(10:03):
job. So I'm wondering if you canjust give us like we're we'll
get into more of the details,but like, can you just give us a
few examples so we can kind ofimagine what, what sort of
things are you like tasting orthinking about in this role for
people who just literally haveno idea what some of the
examples could be,

of course. Yeah, I tease my husband all the time
when I see his work calendar,I'm like, there are zero slushy
tastings on your calendar. Idon't know how you go to work
every day, but it's everythingfrom when we're working on a new
ingredient, innovation,understanding, you know, does
this ingredient do what we sayit's going to do? So when I say
this is a sweetness enhancer andI put it in a sweetened drink

(10:44):
with and without the ingredientwe're adding, does it actually
taste sweeter? So on a reallyscientific level, sometimes it's
evaluating, do these things saywhat we say they're going to do,
and are they performing in theway that we expect? But other
times, it's about tasting thesefinished products. So it's
here's three different versionsof cherry cola. Which one do we
all prefer? Why do we prefer it?
Which one has more cherry morecola? What's the character of

(11:07):
the cola, and how do we capturenotes and come to an alignment
on the way we're talking aboutthose flavors and ingredients,
to figure out what we actuallywant and how to move it in the
direction of the thing that wehad in mind when we started on
the project. So everything fromready to drink, things you find
in store to builds for foodservice. Of you know, what is

(11:28):
this frozen coffee drink goingto taste like? Or what is this
Margarita going to taste like?
When we mix in the alcohol, wedo tastings for those so it is a
lot of either guided tasting,where I'm asking questions and
taking notes, or where we'recollecting survey data as we
taste, and we're tastingindividually and then analyzing
that data to figure out, whatdid we learn when we weren't

(11:50):
biasing each other of whatpeople actually want as they're
filling out these surveys?

Oh, wow, yeah, that's so fascinating. You
know, it's funny, like, it cameto mind when you said slushies.
I was like, she's a she's aslushy sommelier

with people in the lab. You know, we work a lot on
functional nutrition and sportsand energy drinks, and so I do
joke about being like an energydrink sommelier. Sometimes that
maybe a little less glamorousthan talking about terroir and
things if you're talking aboutwine. But like, are you picking
up on the cooked juice, notes ofthis orange. Yeah, about where
we're at most days. Yeah, that'sso

funny. Oh, I love that. That's super
fascinating. And I'm curious,like, I want to go back a little
bit and talk about, you know,if, if you knew about this field
growing up, or, like, how didyou, how did you get into doing
this job, because it is, Idon't. I actually, you know,
interviewed another foodscientist. But before that, I

(12:47):
actually didn't know that itexisted as a field. So I'm
curious. Like, what, what isyour, your sort of story? And,
like, how did you get here? Inthat regards, wow,

my food science origin story. I also did not
know about food science growingup. So at the end of high
school, getting ready to go tocollege, I was a kid who loved
math and science, but I alsoloved more creative things too.
And at some point, I was thatkid who also loved food network
and thought maybe nutrition ordietetics was an interesting

(13:18):
space. And I was at the schoolthat I went to, Michigan State.
I was there for like, ascholarship weekend, and you had
to go to these open houseinformation sessions for the
college you thought you weregoing to. And I was an undecided
major, and so I had to just pickone. And I picked the College of
Agriculture because dieteticsand nutrition was there. But
there were also these reallyother interesting fields that I

(13:39):
was like, they all got jammedinto agriculture together. They
were like, forestry and zoologymajors and interior design
majors. And I'm like, this seemslike a unique group of varied
majors to just go hang out with.
And I get there, and they askedwho's here for food science, for
going on a tour of the ice creamplant? And I said, Yes, me. That
is me. I go on a tour of an icecream plant. They give me

(14:01):
cookies. They talk to me aboutfood science as a career, that
it's a really in demand jobwhere you get to develop new
products or improve food safety,or all of these other amazing
things, to bring the productsthat we all know and love to
life. But if you haven't metsomeone in that field, you're
not really thinking about thefact that there are smart
scientists doing the work behindit, and I was hooked, so I

(14:22):
declared a major and went intofood science first thing
freshman year, and loved it andnever looked back, because it
really was that combination ofpractical application of science
to something that I alreadyreally loved, that also felt a
little bit creative.

I love that. What a great way to get
people interested in and ask youhow to go on a tour, right? I
mean, like, I feel like everyoneat every age, like two to
whatever, you know, 95 would belike, yes, please, yeah. So yes.
I love that. And how, like, asfar as your your education, in

(15:05):
your degrees, can you tell me alittle bit about that? Because I
see here you have quite, quite afew degrees under your belt, so
I'd love to hear about that. Andlike, why you know why you chose
to get them, if you if you feltlike you needed those for your
career, or if it was just likean enhance, you know, what you
were wanting to focus on, orbecome a leader in in some way?

Yeah, absolutely.
So obviously, my first degree isin food science. I have a
Bachelor's of Food Science fromMichigan State, and that, to me,
was really the entry intofiguring out, what do I want to
do in food science and isnecessary to become a food
scientist within that I kind ofworked in an undergraduate lab
that did a few different things,but one of the things we focused
on was sensory science. So I wasthe one setting up the taste

(15:51):
tests and labeling plates andcups and administering the test
to people. And I really, reallyenjoyed it. So when it came time
to go to work full time. I endedup doing a bit of a rotational
program where I got to try fourdifferent jobs with an R and D
in my first two years, and oneof them was sensory. And when I
tried it at an actual company, Istill loved it. And being that

(16:12):
voice of the consumer and havingto translate what people say
they want to a really technicaloutcome was something that I
just enjoyed. So I fell into arole in sensory for several
years, and while I was there,decided that the other kind of
side of the research coin isdoing market research, so
understanding outside of theproduct and the experience that

(16:33):
you're building. What are theunmet needs of the consumers?
What do people not even knowthey want yet, but you're you
can develop something that'sgoing to solve a problem for
them. So I decided to go back toschool for a degree in
integrated marketingcommunications at Northwestern
and that was really not, youknow, a necessary step for being
a sensory scientist or aninsights researcher, but it felt

(16:54):
like a good enhancement. So itallowed me to see from a more
business and marketing andcommunications driven
perspective. How do youconstruct research? How do you
build brands and products thathave similar touch points across
every place you see them? Howdoes the product reinforce what
the brand promises? And I feltlike it would give me a little

(17:14):
bit more range as a researcherto understand the more business
and marketing sides of a companyand how you develop a product.
So it allowed me to take on someroles that I otherwise might not
have had in my career, andreally broaden my experience.
And all of that has kind ofbrought me here to my current
role at imbibe, where I get tofocus on a little bit of

(17:35):
everything, where I'm getting todo product and sensory research,
market and consumer insights andtrying to figure out what's next
for ingredient research that Ifeel like I get to wear all
those different hats from thedifferent educational
experiences I've had. Yeah,

that's fascinating. It's really
interesting too. I love that youI mean, it's interesting that
you went that route, becausewhen I was, you know, reading
about your experience, and I waslike, Oh, that's so interesting,
because I have, like, a PRjournalism background and still
have been in communications fora while. But it's interesting
because not often do you see,like, the science combined with

(18:15):
communications. So I love that,because I can see also you
talking about just the abilityto tell stories, it's like, you
know, but also the sciencebehind things. And I could see
how those would maybeunexpectedly go together for
some people, but that how itactually allows you to do a more

(18:37):
sort of comprehensive job of,like, not only, you know, having
one side of things, but thenbeing able to tell the story
around it, and also maybeinterpreting what people, what
people are sharing with you. Andbeing like, I think actually,
you know, like taking pieces ofthat, like analyzing it a little
bit further. So that's reallycool,

yeah, and it's so critical for me in so many
different places. So I thinkbeing able to story, tell and
communicate difficult, technicalthings in a way that resonates
with people is really relevantwhen I get data back on a study
of what products did people likeand how do we change the
product, but it's also reallyrelevant in creating new
products of this is what peoplesaid they wanted. How do you

(19:20):
build a brand or a comms messagearound a new product that's
launching, that's going toresonate so that this great
product ends up in the righthands and with people who want
what the product says it's goingto do. And how do you
communicate that, and eveninternally, for me, as we're
launching new ingredients, howdo we figure out what
ingredients and technologies areemerging and are cool and can do

(19:41):
something neat, but how do wetranslate that to meeting a
consumer need or meeting aproduct developer's requirement
on the bench, so that it'sactually something that's
saleable in the future? Becausethere are so many really cool
ideas that without a translationof, how do they become relevant,
or how do you talk about them ina way that gets people excited,
might never see the light ofday? So I. Think being able to

(20:01):
have something in communicationsis a bit of a superpower to help
in most roles, to translate towhy is this relevant, and why
does this mean something? Yeah,I could

see how that would be applicable in so
many ways. And you are like suchan amazing storyteller, just you
know, in the time of the shorttime that we've been talking. So
I love that. And then for yourjob now, like, in your role, can
you talk about, kind of, some ofthe roles and responsibilities

(20:31):
that you have, you know, maybesome of the the pieces of it, in
regards to, you know, like, ifthere's a process that you go
through, typically when you'redeveloping and like, who those
different people are, and thenkind of the translation between
also the kind of the in housework that you do at your

(20:52):
company, and then what we see inthe, you know, in the world,
like on our shelves and thingswhen we go to our local grocery
store or, you know, orconvenience store,

yeah. So on the Insight side, a lot of what
we're doing is trying tounderstand what's trending in
the marketplace. So we'll lookat things like search trends or
what people are hacking togetheron Pinterest and Tiktok and
other data that we have fromcompanies that come to us, and
what do we get asked for? And wekind of triangulate all those
pieces of data to say, here arethe topics we think are really

(21:24):
resonant and things that aregoing to continue in the
marketplace. And so from that,we'll build, kind of like
insights reports or things thatwe share out with our customers
and put together blog posts orother collateral or stories that
we tell, that we help themunderstand where might they want
to take their portfolios andwhat new products might they
want to launch. So we'll do alot of that, and it's a lot of

(21:44):
that taking multiple pieces ofdata to figure out, what are the
insights you can derive from it,and what's the story you're
going to tell, and how do wethink it's going to come to
fruition? And then on theproduct side, it's a lot of
we're already working on thesecustomer product development
projects that we've beencommissioned to do as a
consultant, and so they haveasked us for something, and so
it's, how do we take what theyspecifically asked for, combine

(22:07):
it with what we know ispossible, and create a bunch of
prototypes that we can getfeedback on. So then I might be
setting up surveys that I'msending to our customers that I
say, get 10 people at yourcompany to taste it. I'll
compile all the data. I'llfigure out what you actually all
think you want, and how we didbased on what I know our
development team sent. And thenour development team will go

(22:28):
through the results with me andsay, Okay, well, we tried
variation A, B and C. They'redifferent in these ways. They
like this one. We think thatmeans we should do this for our
next round of revisions, becausethat's what they liked, and we
think that's going to get themto the product that they're
going to like the best, andwe'll present that back to them
and say, we'll send you moresamples in another week, based

(22:49):
on what we learned here. Sothat's how that comes to
fruition. And then what doesthat mean for the marketplace?
The customers that we work withare everything from, you know,
private label for stores to foodservice companies to some of the
biggest CPG brands that you'reprobably already buying, and
we're kind of the ones behindthe scenes, so the trends that
we share with them, or thefeedback that we help give them

(23:11):
end up coming to life in theproducts that you see on the
shelf six nine months later. Sowe might do something on
nostalgic flavors being trendy,and things like sherbet and
popsicles and creamsicles beingthings that people love, or
candy flavors that arethrowbacks, and then six months
later, you might see things onthe shelf that have those

(23:32):
flavors, because we sawnostalgia as a trend, and it's
now manifested in the productsthat we've developed.

Wow, that's so interesting. I'm thinking I
just saw like a black it waslike a Blackberry soda. I think
it was like BlackBerry Dr Pepperor something. And I was like
BlackBerry Dr Pepper. What? Whatis this interesting flavor? I've
never heard of such a thing. Sothat's really interesting,
because I don't think that Ipaid, I guess, as much

(24:01):
attention, maybe as as thingschange, as I think I do, you
know, it's just like you seewhat you see, and you're not
necessarily like noting thatthere's that there's these new
flavors of things. And so howlong does it usually take
between like, when you aredeveloping versus like when it

(24:21):
might hit product shelves. Like,is there a certain average time
frame? Or how does that work?

It takes longer than you would think sometimes.
So it kind of depends on thesize of the company and the
scale of the launch that they'regoing to have. Smaller companies
might be more agile and might bebuying time at co manufacturers,
and they might be able to moverelatively quickly. Or if they
are a direct to consumer companyand they control their own
supply chain, they might moverelatively quickly so it might
be just a few months. There areother things where you might be

(24:52):
selling into a large retailer,and they might only have a few
reset Windows per year when theyrestock or change up the
planogram for a. Certaincategory, and so you might be
selling into those buyers monthsin advance. So it might take
nine to 18 months between whensomething is first ideated and
when it's actually getting outthere to the marketplace. So
some trends move fast, some moveslow, and we see kind of

(25:15):
everything in between, wow,

and when, when you're developing a flavor.
Like, I don't know, do you havean example that you're able to
share with us? Of, like, youknow, when someone is wanting to
either create something fromscratch, or maybe, like, change
up a flavor, like, you're doingsomething, yeah, that you are
seeing based on a trend, like,how, how does that work? Like,

(25:38):
you know, are you kind of, youknow, creating new things and
just like, adding it in, drop bydrop, or, like, how does that
actually work, that wholeprocess? What's

really interesting is that we don't, if you're not
in the flavor world, you'reprobably not thinking about how
many different ways there are todeliver mango. For instance,
you're probably thinking mango'smango, and someone comes to you
and says they want mango, andyou give them a mango flavor,
right? But what we find is it'sreally important up front to
align on what that means, andthere's a few different ways to
do it. So one of the easiestways is to say what out there in

(26:10):
the market tastes similar towhat you want. Is there another
product, or is there a specificvarietal of that fruit that you
want as the thing that we'retargeting when we're creating
this flavor, and we can thenfigure out what's in it, what
compounds are reallycharacteristic to it. How do we
create that flavor? Or if that'snot what you're coming in with,
sometimes we'll do somethingthat we call lexicon alignment,

(26:33):
where we're essentially sayingthese are all of the terms that
we could use to describe thisflavor. And we'll have our
flavors pull example flavors,or, example, chemical compounds
that create those specificattributes. And we'll say, when
we say a sulfurous mango, wemean this. When we say a pili
mango or a ripe mango or a greenmango, we mean this, this and

(26:55):
this, smell them, taste them.
Which one is it? And sometimeswe'll use that to help align on
what we mean. Other times, wemight just pull a bunch of
different things in the categoryand talk to them about how we
would describe each one and whatthey want. So an example I might
have here is, let's say we'reworking on cherry cola. We might
go pull five or six cherry Colasfrom the market and sit and

(27:16):
taste them together and say whatratio of cherry to cola is in
all of these. Are all of themmore cherry cola or cherry
forward or cola forward? Whenthey're we're saying cola. Are
they more spice or citrus typecolas? Are they more, you know,
true to fruit cherry orartificial or medicinal or black
cherry? What kind of cherry isit? And then we can say, here's

(27:37):
what we liked and what wedidn't, and here's what we think
that ideal profile is going tobe. And let's start there. And
then our flavorists, who arefascinating. These are people
who have trained for seven yearsunder an apprenticeship to
become a certified flavorist.
They just know what componentsgo into those flavors to deliver
on the different ways we talkabout it. And they will create

(27:59):
something and say, Is this whatyou meant? And we'll put it into
the product, get feedback, andthen we tweak from there. Wow,

that's fascinating. I did not think
there were so many possibilitiesfor mango.

Unknown (28:12):
Yeah, I think I know many ways to make a mango. Yes,
I'm

like a green What is it like? A green
mango and yellow, a tufaloMango. It's like, basically the
ones I know. So that'shysterical and really
fascinating. Thank you forexplaining that. Yeah, the
flavors sound amazing. Like,that's a lot of studying, for
sure, to be able to do that withprecision. Very cool. And then

(28:37):
for you, you know, like, what doyou think are some of the the
aspects of your job that peoplealso may not know about, that
exist that like just really makeit fun for you.

That's a great question. I think, is really
that it is at that intersectionof getting to do something
creative and kind of practicalwith a really tangible outcome,
but also getting to explore anduse a lot of science and data in
my job too. So you know, so manytimes you might start down a
certain path and you mightreally enjoy chemistry or

(29:12):
statistics, but you might alsoenjoy doing something that feels
more creative or applicable tosomething that you love. And
what's really cool about foodscience and sensory science
specifically is, you know, I'mconstantly generating data, but
it's for a tangible outcome, andit's to make products that I'm
excited and proud to buy and Ilove and that tastes great,
which is a really funapplication for those skills.

(29:35):
And so I think what I love somuch about this space is being
able to take little bits of allof those things that give me joy
and apply them to somethingthat's just a fun product
category to work on. Yeah,

I love that. And will you explain also,
like, when you talk aboutsensory will you explain that a
little bit like, what? What doesthat mean? It's

a great question, because it's exactly what it
sounds like, but it's not sointuitive. When we talk about
sensory science, it really ismeasuring product attributes
using your five senses. So wetalk a lot about, what aroma
does this product have? Howstrong is it? What is the
appearance like? What is thetexture like as you touch it or
drink it or crunch on it, ifit's a snack food, and then

(30:18):
flavor and taste. So what'sactually happening with sweet,
salty, with flavor, which iskind of a combination of what's
going on on your tongue and yourretronasal passage to experience
different flavors. So it'strying to put some more
qualitative or quantitativemeasures around the sensory
experiences that we're allhaving every day, in hopes of
measuring what we like and whatwe want and being able to alter

(30:41):
a product to make it as good aspossible to deliver on those
expectations. Okay,

yeah, thank you for explaining that. And so
when, I guess, like, when you'reworking with people, especially
when you're working with peoplewho are like, tasting it and and
you're getting feedback from,you know, future customers, how
do you how do you go about thatprocess? Because I'm imagining,
like, as you're speaking, I'mthinking, I'm like, I don't
think I ever paid that muchattention, you know, to, like,

(31:09):
all of my senses, not at leastat once, right? Like, for when
I'm trying something. And so I'mcurious, like, how are you going
about that process? And do youfind that people don't really,
actually think about how theytry foods. I'm just curious,

(31:29):
like, what is that? Because I'mthinking about, I'm like, you
know, if I try a new ice cream,I'm like, I either like it or I
don't. And I can maybe sometimespinpoint, like, Oh, it's too
crunchy, or right, like, it's, Idon't something, about it tastes
off to me. Or, if, like, if Itry a new bubbly drink, I might
be like, there's too manybubbles for me. Or, like, you
know, I It's too flat. But doyou find that people often pay

(31:55):
attention to things, and I'mjust an anomaly, just curious,
like, what? What is that likewhen you're working with with
the customers. It's

funny, because a lot of people think that they're
not good tasters, or they'rereally afraid to try describing
something for the first timebecause they say, I don't have
the words, or I'm not going togive you good feedback, but any
feedback is good feedback, andit's my job to help try and pull
more out and get to somethingthat we can then action on. So
if we're giving surveys, ifwe're doing kind of proper taste
tests, we ask questions exactlythe way I just walked you

(32:27):
through. How much do you likethe appearance, how much do you
like the aroma, how much do youlike the flavor, how much do you
like the sweetness? And we breakit into those attributes,
because most people might not bethinking about that, but if
someone forces you to sit, yousit and go, Yeah, okay. I can
actually pick out all of thoseelements, and I can have an
opinion about them. We usuallystart with a broad question of

(32:48):
just overall, how much do youlike it? So we usually do start
with that gut reaction of howeveryone tastes things like,
Yes, I like it. No, I don't.
Here's why it was too bubbly, orit was too crunchy, or there
were too many ice crystals inyour ice cream, and that gives
us something to go off of, andall of those other questions
then become the diagnosticswhere, when you compare more
than one product, even if peoplearen't super adept, adept

(33:09):
tasters, but you're giving themmultiple products to rate and
asking them to think about it,or benchmarking against
something, you can usually getenough data to then say this is
the thing that stands out. Orpeople who say they really like
this product, when we look atwhich attributes they're rating
it well on, or the people whodon't like it, which attributes
are they rating it not well on?

(33:31):
This is the thing that's drivingthem to like it or not like it,
even if they weren't able totell you that in their open
ended comments, because we asked100 people in this trend holds.
And here's what the stats aretelling us. So when we do it
through a formal survey, weusually ask at all those
different layers, and withnumbers, you can really get an
understanding of what is or isnot driving liking when we're

(33:52):
doing it through guided feedbackand tastings, it's kind of
incumbent on me to be able toask those good detailed
questions and to see wherepeople are taking me and ask
them about their experiences. SoI usually will, if they tell me
they like it or they don't.
That's exactly when I would say,why not? And he would say, It's
too bubbly. And I would say,Okay, what does that mean? How
is it too bubbly? Is it thatit's too acidic? Is it too

(34:14):
sharp? Is it the physicalbubbles you don't like, the way
they feel in your mouth? And wewould then start to pinpoint
what about it is or is notworking, and then I would be
able to go back to my team andbased on that feedback, say
something like, oh, thecarbonation level is too high,
or it's coming off as too sharpand acidic. Maybe we need to
take down the acid a bit andhelp find those balances. So

(34:36):
even if the people don't havethe words to tell me or it's not
top of mind, every single mealthey eat or every single
beverage they consume. If we askreally good questions, we get
the answers we need to makerevisions and make things
better.

Yeah, wow.
That's fascinating. And how likewhen you are coming up with
questions is like, sort of thescientist part of your role? I.
Like, Are there standards orsort of procedures and processes
that are, I guess, like commonto the food science world that
you just start with and kind ofautomatically know, because of

(35:13):
all your training in that area,

yes. So we have a set of tests that we typically
run. So we have what we calleffective tests, which are the
tests where you understandpreference, or how much people
like something and why they likeit, and are certain things too
much, too little, or just aboutright? So there's a whole set of
questions that are kind ofstandard to that. We have a
whole set of tests calleddifference tests, where you

(35:38):
might ask whether or not twoproducts are the same or
different, or I might give youthree products and ask you to
find the odd one out. And thosetypes of tests are really useful
for when we're doing qualityinitiatives where we're swapping
in different ingredients, or ifwe're trying to match a flavor
and we want it to taste exactlylike the incumbent flavor we're
trying to match, we might dothat type of tests. So there

(36:01):
definitely are repeatable androutine tests that sensory
scientists learn and questiontypes that kind of underpin
those tests that we all know.
One of the really fun thingsabout this job, though, is my
goal is, in any way, shape orform, to help my team get data
that helps inform decisionmaking. And sometimes we have
all of the ideal tools andthings that we need to get the

(36:23):
job done, and you can run theexact test that's tried and
true. But sometimes you have tobe a little scrappy and you need
to be practical about here's howmuch time or resource we
actually have, or here's what wecan learn with prototypes we
currently have. And then it's myjob to be creative, to figure
out, what are those questions,or what are those tests that we
can run to get us anything thatcan feed our intuition or our

(36:45):
gut to make those choices andmove forward? So it's really
great to know the tried and truesensory methods, and sometimes
the fun part is figuring outwhere you can reapply them in
new ways to learn something newor meet the needs of your team.
Yeah,

that's really interesting and and I
appreciate you like explainingthat there are sort of some
tried and true things, becausethat's what I was thinking of.
How do you know what questionsto ask? Like, because you could
just, you could probably go onand on and on asking a million
questions. Because just withmango, it's like, there's so
many choices. So I want to shifta little bit too, because I'm
curious when you do startworking with the clients, like,

(37:22):
on that side of things, how doesthat work? I am guessing, you
know, you mentioned sometimes,like they're, they're coming to
you and saying, I want to dosomething with, you know, maybe
a certain flavor profile, and Iwant it to taste like XYZ. How
do you figure out, like, youknow, you said, you you have
some, some ability to work withthe flavor scientists. And then

(37:46):
after you get through thatprocess, and like, you come to,
you know, you've tested aflavor, and then you work with
the customers to see, like, isthis something that people like?
What are those next steps? Howdoes it go from kind of like,
where you guys are testingthings, at what point do you
decide? Okay, we think enoughpeople are going to enjoy this,

(38:07):
and then, because I'm imaginingthat, that's a pretty big
decision to probably finallydecide on something, because
then it's like, then you'regetting all the other teams
involved in, like, manufacturingand then the marketing. So how,
how does that come to be? Andthen, like, what I guess is the

(38:27):
process after you're like, Yes,this is the, this is the final,
you know, to market product.
What is that like? Well, it

really depends on the company. Some companies are
really swift at decision making.
And if their core team tries andloves a product and they feel
good about it, they mightconsider themselves the stewards
of their brand or kind of thevoice of their own consumers,
and make those choices and say,Let's lock this formula in. We
love it. Other companies mightthen go to a larger consumer
panel, so they might take theproduct to 100 or more consumers

(38:56):
at a taste test facility andbenchmark it against one of
their existing products oragainst another product on the
market. Or just say, we're goingto ask how much people like it
on a one to nine scale, and theaverage score needs to be seven
or higher for us to want tolaunch this so that we feel
confident it's well liked. So itreally depends on their level of

(39:16):
comfort and the amount of datathey want to make that decision.
So we help support them, nomatter what that looks like, and
then from there, normally, oncethey lock in a flavor and a
finished formula that they like,our team will help them all the
way through scale up, if theywant. So a lot of times, we're
making samples here in our pilotplant that we're sending to them
for evaluation or for testing,if they have a factory of their

(39:39):
own or a co manufacturer thatthey're working with, we might
help support making sure thatrecipe tastes the same as
they're going through a largerprocess and they're making
10,000 bottles instead of 100 atthe bench top level or in our
pilot plant. So we'll make sureit still is tasting great, and
that we've scaled up our flavorsto be able to supply it to the.
Them in the quantities that theyneed, and that it continues to

(40:01):
taste how they experienced itwhen they tried it with us. And
so we kind of support themthrough that journey, until they
get through commercializationand launch and their product
gets out to this to the stores.
Wow,

that's really fascinating. And I'm, I'm
guessing, like, I guess, can yougive examples of some of the
products. Like, I know youmentioned, some of them might be
like energy drinks, but what aresome of the examples of of
things that you've worked on inlike, in the past? Yeah,

so we work on all sorts of products which is
really fun, everything from kidsjuice products to protein
shakes, to Alt dairy products,hydration beverages, energy
drinks, carbonated soft drinksand flavored waters. We've even
done some hard seltzer projects.
We do cocktail mixers. We doliquid concentrates, kind of,

(40:58):
you know, like the ones youwould squeeze into a bottle of
water to flavor the wholebottle. So we get to work a
bunch of a bunch of differentproduct formats, which is really
fun, and a bunch of differentbrands. So one of the things I
love working for a flavor andingredient supplier is that I
really do get to see a prettybig breadth of brands and
products. And it's fun thatevery day I feel like I learned

(41:19):
something new, and I get forcedto ask new questions I haven't
asked before, and learn aboutthese new product categories
that maybe I hadn't been workingin before. Yeah,

wow, yeah.
That's like a lot more thanactually I was even thinking of
so that's that's really cool.
And for you, do you? Do you workwith, like, an equal balance of
men and women. Are there a lotof women in your field? And in
general, are there a lot of foodscientists that exist? Because I
was under the impression thatthere actually aren't that many

(41:51):
food scientists in general, I

feel like it's a growing field. So I remember
when I started in college, theywere saying, we have more food
science jobs open than we havepeople to fill them. And by the
time I graduated four yearslater, that was not the case,
because it kind of started toblow up. And I think things like
Elton brown and the Food Networkkind of helped illuminate that
food is a science, and morepeople have found the field. So

(42:14):
I feel like the field of FoodScience is growing. Sensory
science and consumer insightsand market research
specifically, is a much smallerfield, and there's fewer of us,
and it does tend to be a lot ofwomen, which is really great. I
feel like in my roles in sensoryand in consumer insights, I
usually get to work in a team ofsmart, strong, wonderful women

(42:34):
who are great partners and greatinspiration and coaches. So I've
been really thankful that it'sbeen a great field for
networking and building thosekind of relationships throughout
my career as well. That's

awesome.
And for the people you workwith, do you for like, a lot of
those sort of either supportingroles or adjacent roles? You
know, if people are listeningand they're like, oh, wow, I
love, I love the idea of doingthis career, but maybe I don't
have a food science degree. Arethere other avenues that people
can get into doing this type ofcareer, like getting into this

(43:10):
industry without having a FoodScience degree, like or are
there other ways to sort of getthe experience that they might
need to also do this job

Absolutely. So there are lots of roles in food
companies that do not needtechnical degrees at all, or
might have very differentbackgrounds. And the interesting
thing about sensory and consumerresearch is that on the sensory
side, you get the majority ofpeople who come up with a food
science degree, and that's howthey landed there. But on the
consumer insight side, which iskind of all those same research

(43:43):
and storytelling andcommunication skills, but
focused more on what theconsumer wants and building
brands and building concepts andless about the physical product.
You tend to get more people withbusiness communications or other
research backgrounds, evenpeople like sociologists who
might do ethnographic researchon consumers could end up in a

(44:03):
field like consumer insights. SoI feel like even for my specific
role, I've had people who I'veworked with who have not
necessarily come back from afood science background, but who
have had those other skills thatare so core to the job, and they
can figure out enough of thescience to be dangerous and give
good feedback, but withouthaving that been how they got
there. And then the other thingis, food companies are large, so

(44:25):
there's finance departments andthere's marketing and PR
departments, and there's sales,and so there are all these other
adjacent activities that arehappening in companies like mine
that you don't have to have atechnical background, but if you
happen to think food is a coolfield, and it's what makes you
excited to come to work everyday. There's something for you
to do here, and then you can beon my taste testing panels and

(44:48):
get to experience products asthey're being made, even if
that's not the background thatyou have. Yeah.

Okay, awesome. Thank you for sharing
that. And I want to ask like,you know, in regards to. Your
industry, are there certainplaces, if people are listening
and they they want to learn moreabout the field, like that, they
can either find like resourcesor associations or
organizations, just kind ofthings that will help get their

(45:14):
you know, get their feet wet, orhelp connect them to maybe some
people in the field that theycan start asking some more
questions and getting moreeducation about about what you
do and like how to get started.

Yes, so IFT or Institute of food technologist
is an organization for foodscience, more broadly, that a
lot of people join, especiallywhen they're in college, and
that they have local chaptersthat you can join. There are non
member rates for events that youcould go to, theoretically, if
you wanted to to be able tounderstand what kind of lectures
are they giving, what kind oftopics are they covering, do you

(45:46):
want to go do a wine andchocolate pairing and learn
about the flavor compounds incocoa? Maybe. So those are
things that you can sign up foror look for locally if you're
interested in learning morespecific to sensory there's the
Society of sensoryprofessionals, is an
organization that has a lot ofinformation on their web page
about sensory programs and thelingo that goes with sensory and

(46:08):
more about that as a properscience and then for market
research works, is aninteresting site that has lots
of opportunities and interviewswith people who are in the
market research field. They havesome cool ongoing series and
interviews with people abouttheir diverse backgrounds and
things like, What hobbies dothey have that they bring to
their work that makes them goodat what they do? So a little bit

(46:29):
of that, you know, bringing yourown personality to being a good
researcher, and how there aremany ways to get there, and not
just one way. And so I wouldrecommend those three as
interesting places to look kindof as a first go to see if
there's anything that piquesmore interest, or anyone you
would want to connect with.
Yeah,

those sound, Those all sound really
great, and actually superdiverse. So I love that all
three of those, like are part ofyour job. That's so cool. Yeah,
yeah. And then I have to ask,because I think, just think it's
such an interesting question foryou, when you're out in the
world, not at work, but youknow, you're just eating and
doing your everyday thing, areyou analyzing, or are you just

(47:09):
experience, do you feel likeyou're experiencing food
differently? Or are you justlike, kind of like, tune it out
because you're not at work? Howdo you like? How do you go about
that? Or is it just ingrained?

It's a little bit of both. So I do joke that
because I my background has beenin sensory I think people assume
that I'm going to be this reallydiscerning taster and have all
of the right language to talkabout everything, and I just
happen to be the person whowants to eat everything I ended
up in food and beverage, becauseI like to eat. I like to cook.
So No, it doesn't stop me fromenjoying all of my food

(47:42):
experiences. I will say, though,it becomes a bit of a hobby
that, like, you enjoy going totastings for things, or you love
to sit down and talk about whatyou're experiencing when you
turn that part of your brain on,but it doesn't by any means,
take over. While I'm eating, I'mstill just thinking, wow, this
is delicious, and I'm enjoyingthis meal, I will say, though,
at the grocery store, you'veturned into that person who's

(48:04):
constantly scanning everycategory to see what's new and
who's launching what whatflavors do you see? What claims
do they have on pack? So Iprobably take longer to do my
grocery shopping than most,because I'm also just there for
my own learning on top of tryingto pick up the things I need for
the week.

Yeah. And do you feel like in general, for
a lot of foods, you know,including drinks, because I know
that's what we talked about alot, because that's a lot of
what you do. But do you feellike in a lot of food
categories, especially thingsthat we see, whether it's like
cereal or soup, pretzels, likethat. Actually, there are a lot

(48:42):
of food scientists behind thethings that we see in the store
that we might not realize thatthere they exist. You know that
they're creating these thingswith an intention behind it?

Absolutely so so many products. There are so much
research going into what they'relaunching from. What new flavor
do we think we should launchnext year? Is our limited time
offering to how do we optimizethe quality of this and make it
a better product? There'sconstantly renovations happening
of now longer lasting or evenbetter texture and things like

(49:14):
that. So all the products thatare in the store were either
developed with a lot of thoughtfrom food scientists, are still
being renovated and optimizedwith a lot of thought from food
scientists. And so that's one ofthe fun parts about working on
brands too, is that when Iworked on the branded side, the
projects I would work on, Iwould go to the store and be
like, I know the developer whomade that, he made a really

(49:36):
great flavor of that candy, andit's amazing. And he sits 10
feet from my desk, and I'm superproud to buy it, and I ran the
sensory test on it. So that's areally fun part of being at the
store, that it becomes thispersonal experience of having
emotions from working on thoseproducts and feeling a lot of
pride that you know the peoplewho did it and how much work
went into making somethinggreat, and when you see someone

(49:57):
else buying it too, that's evenmore exciting to be like. Yes,
okay, someone out there in thewild loves our product and is
putting it in their cart like,job well done. Yeah.

And does that mean you'd also work with
buyers as part of this role,like, or is that sort of a
different function as well?
Like, do buyers help decide whatproducts they think will be of,
you know, of interest in, youknow, in the future, like in a
year or so down the line,

they absolutely do. So we don't see as much of
that on our end, being aningredient company. But again,
having worked on brandedproducts in the past, if you're
working for a big company thatis selling into a retailer, you
do have people in your salesteam who have relationships with
those retailer buyers, and theyare dictating what ends up on
the shelf. And so oftentimes,especially when I worked in

(50:49):
market insights, we were helpingto craft what we call a sales
story. So essentially, here'swhy we think this thing is going
to be big. Here's the markettrend that's happening. Here's
other data to support why wethink it's going to do well,
here's the research study we ranon why we think this is a great
product and why it should slotin for this other thing we're
taking off the shelf, or why weshould get incremental space for

(51:11):
it, and they're trying to keeptheir pulse on what does the
shopper of my store want in thefuture? Is this relevant to
them? Yes or no. And so we wouldhelp gather that data to say,
hey, we know you have limitedshelf space, and you get to pick
what goes here. Here's why wethink this product is really
great. So we need to be thinkingabout their consumer and
reflecting their consumers wantsto them, to try and help build

(51:33):
support for why those thingsdeserve to be there.

Wow. And in regards to future casting, I
don't know if that's a properword for this scenario, but like
looking at the future, how doyou actually decide, or, you
know, guess, with a lot ofresearch behind it, what is
going to be popular, you know,one or two years down the line?

(51:57):
Like, how do you find those datapoints to support creating
something

it's a really good question, and it's one of those
things that's like a little bitof our am science and
triangulating a lot of data. Oneinteresting thing in the food
and beverage space is kind oflooking at adoption curves of
different flavors. So a lot oftimes, what might be trending in
the future is what's happeningin fine dining, or what people
are cobbling together themselvesat home right now in these

(52:24):
really interesting experiencesthat aren't mainstream yet. And
so those then might end upgetting picked up by less high
end restaurants and maybe beingsimplified a little bit, and
they eventually work their wayto mid tier chains and into fast
casual. And next thing you know,they're also being sold at the
grocery store for you to takehome. So that's kind of one way
that those things happen. Andthen it becomes incumbent on a

(52:47):
researcher to understand what'sshowing up in that space of
people who are looking to thefuture and doing these
interesting high end things, andwhich one of them are based in
other mega trends that arehappening that might then also
become bigger or have morerelevance to a bigger part of
the population, and some of themare just going to be interesting
things that happen once or twiceand never make their way through

(53:09):
that adoption curve. So you kindof have to try and triangulate
with other data to say, Okay,here's culturally what's
happening right now. Here aresome other adjacent things
outside of food that are showingtrends, like maybe Scandinavian
design is showing trends, andmaybe that's also going to
translate to Scandinavianflavors. Or maybe it's a tough
election year and there's aneconomic downturn and people are

(53:31):
turning to nostalgia becausenostalgia is comfortable, and we
think that those flavors arewhat's going to be next. So it
is this bit of what's going onin food, what's going on in
culture at large, and then whatdo you see in other adjacent
areas to help you say, and now,consequently, we think these are
the things that are going to hitand stay for a bit in food and

(53:51):
beverage. Wow,

yeah, that's fascinating. And is that
when you're pulling in also,like, you know, whether it's
people who are blogging or likethings from Tiktok or other
social media, just kind of liketrying to see what's happening
in those places. Yes,

our marketing team loves to stay on top of what's
going on, and I have otherpeople who keep me cool and tell
me what's happening on Tiktok.
But I mean, when water talk blewup as a thing, and people were
customizing their waters in alldifferent sorts of ways, or
whipped lemonade showed up onsocial media like we're always
trying to watch those things tosee. Okay, the reason people are
going on Tiktok or on Pinterestand doing something themselves

(54:29):
is because it doesn't exist atthe store. And so when they're
doing that, is this an ongoingbehavior where they're solving a
real problem or a real painpoint, or it's an ongoing
behavior they want to continueto have, and will developing a
new product in that space be asolution for them that's a
sustainable thing they want tocontinue to buy? Or is it
something that's interesting fora couple weeks, and there's some

(54:52):
cool Tiktok videos, but it's notgoing to be a sustainable trend
that we see going on, so we dotry and. Watch those things, try
them ourselves, and understandif they're going to influence
the flavors and products thatpeople are going to want a year
from now. Yeah,

that's fascinating. Yeah, so so cool
how everything, kind of, like,combines together. Well, I like,
I've loved talking to you. It'sjust been so much fun, and I
feel like I've learned, you knowso much, is there anything that
we didn't touch on that you feellike you would also love to
share about? You know what youdo your cool job? Either that's

(55:31):
like, maybe people wouldn't knowto know about it, like, even I
wouldn't know to ask about it,or it's just something like,
maybe surprising or unusual.

That's a really good question. I think it really
for me, food is one of thosethings that we all have this
touch point with, and we havesuch an experience with, but we
aren't often thinking about howmuch thought is going into it,
and how many people cared aboutgetting something out there, and
how hard they tried to findsomething that we would really
love and be delighted by. And Ithink that's probably true of a

(56:02):
lot more categories than justfood. So if you're someone out
there who loves anothercategory, you love beauty
products, or you love fragranceor something else, just know
that there are probably roleslike mine in those other
categories too, where if youhave a passion for something and
that's the category that getsyou excited to come to work

(56:23):
every day. And you're also anawesome scientist who loves to
do chemistry, like you might bea really good perfume maker at
some point, or, let's say you'rea statistician and you're super
interested in clothing andfashion. There's probably a need
for someone who's doing trendanalytics at those types of
companies. So these interestinglike science and analytic and

(56:44):
consumer research roles are inall these different industries,
and sometimes we don't thinkabout the intersection of them,
or the fact that there's a placefor us to have our interests and
our passions and ourprofessional training and find
where they go together to createa job that's really fun to come
to every

day. Yeah, I love that. That was fabulous
answer, because I wouldn't havethought about that at all. So I
I love that, and I think it'ssuch a good point that in a lot
of industries that we thinkabout, you know, there's all
these people behind the sceneswho are passionately trying to
create the things that we cometo love, and yet we don't know
that they maybe exist and andwhat they're doing to develop

(57:23):
the products we love.

Yes, absolutely awesome.

Well, thank you so much. Well, I want to end
with a question I always askjust to get get a little bit of
like, either the alphabet soupor, like, the jargon of the
verbiage that you often use inyour careers that you know might
be like something you just useevery day or all the time, but
that is something that we mightnot have ever heard before. So

(57:48):
to end our conversation, willyou please share a sentence that
uses verbiage or jargon fromyour field and then translate it
so it's understandable to us?

Sure, I'm going to come back to one of my favorite
topics, or, I think, one that'sprobably people like to talk
about the most. So I'm going togo with we need to align on a
lexicon to describe thecharacter of the flavor they're
looking for. And essentiallywhat that means is we need to
have a shared set of terminologyand be aligned and come together
on what each of those termsmeans, so we know exactly what

(58:18):
it is that you're looking for,because a mango is not a mango
is not a mango, and it's our jobto understand that. So as a
sensory scientist, understandinglexicon, aligning on what they
those terms mean, and helpingbring those things to life in a
really tangible, physicalformat, is kind of at the
intersection of what we do. AndI think the thing that people
get excited about when I tellthem I do that of like, What do

(58:40):
you mean? You make things tastegreat. You talk about what they
taste like all day long. So Ithink that would be my, my
parting sentiment. I

love that, yeah, and it's, I mean, I never
will think about having mangoflavored something again, in the
same way I will be thinking, Iwonder what type of mango This
is? There you go. Yes, well,thank you so much. Nikki. It was
such a pleasure chatting withyou and learning about your cool
job and how you get to justlike, yeah, create all these

(59:11):
really intentional things in andyou know that we see out in the
world that we maybe didn'trealize had a food scientist
behind it?

Well, thank you. I really appreciated being here,
and it was very fun to talkabout my job.

Hey everybody, thank you so much for
listening to women with cooljobs. I'll be releasing a new
episode every two weeks, so makesure you hit that subscribe
button, and if you loved theshow, please give me a five star
rating. Also, it would mean somuch if you share this episode

(59:47):
with someone. You think youwould love it or would find it
inspirational. And lastly, doyou have ideas for future shows,
or do you know any rock starwomen with cool jobs I would
love to hear. From you. You canemail me at
julie@womenwithcooljobs.com, oryou can find me on Instagram at
women cool jobs. Again, that'swomen cool jobs. Thank you so

(01:00:12):
much for listening and have anincredible day. You.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Insights and Innovation Manager (Food Scientist) Uses Sensory Science to Create the Drinks You Love, with Nikki Wollak

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

All Episodes

Insights and Innovation Manager (Food Scientist) Uses Sensory Science to Create the Drinks You Love, with Nikki Wollak

Stuff You Should Know