My Food Job Rocks!

Lin Carson is one of those amazing people who will give away knowledge for free. In this case, her amazing technical expertise in the bakery industry has made her able to share this on an awesome website called Bakerpedia. Think of it as Wikipedia, but for bakers! If you are into bread, especially in a commercial sense, you will absolutely love this interview. So get ready, for an exciting segment...

An Overview of Ideation to Commercialization This episode is going to be a bit different than other episodes. Most episodes were reflection based or stuff about my life but I guess I might have ran out of things to talk about in my life. At least for now. So in this episode, I’m going to talk about the life cycle of a product, how an idea forms, goes through the gauntlet and then commercialized to...

Elliot Begoun is the Principal of The Intertwine Group, which a practice focused on helping emerging food and beverage brands grow. He works with clients to design and execute customized route-to-market and go-to-market strategies that build velocity, gain distribution, and win share of stomach. His articles appear in publications such as the Huffington Post, SmartBrief, and FoodDive. Elliot has h...

While scrolling through some linkedin folks I found Jessica Goldstein’s lecture she did at the RCA. About a week before, one of my friends sent me a link to her and said she might be good to interview. So I did. Jessica is part of the Nu Spice family business, with her partner in crime being her father. She’s grown up in the food industry all of her life but she first decided to work in an electro...

This episode is all about Fair Trade, you’ll not only learn about Equifruit’s focus on bananas, but also what other products can be fair trade, awesome resources in the fair-trade industry, and things of that nature. Kim herself is an expert salesperson. Ever since she was 18 years old, she learned to go out and sell, and we talk over her expert techniques and here’s a secret… it’s all about persp...

Food Law is one of those topics I fell asleep at in college. But it wasn’t until working in the industry did I find just how important it really is. If you’ve been a fan of this podcast, you might have heard my frustrations learning about how the Europeans deal with GMOs. If you’re a first time listener, I’ll talk about it again. But Ceasare Varallo is the man when it comes to making me excited ab...

What’s the point of a food industry podcast if I can’t help you with your careers? That’s why I’ve actually taken a liking on interviewing recruiters because recruiters know the best way to get a job. Bob Pudlock is one of those people. He is an independent recruiter who knows his stuff. Taking an unconventional route, Bob went into recruiting because companies would pay him top dollar to recruit....

Steve Gendel has worked in the FDA for 25 years and this guy has had an amazing career doing so. He’s been involved in the latest and greatest technologies ranging from early stage GMOs, Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act, and of course, our favorite one right now, FSMA. The best part of this episode is the very practical and real advice he give son how to get a job at the FDA. Of...

Darin’s son died of an E.coli outbreak and he has spent the last 25 years devoting his life to making the world a safer place. Within the last 25 years, he’s become a Doctorate in Law and Policy where his main focus is to implement Food Policy. He’s talked with doctors, scientists, law makers, and graduate students into fighting for food safety. In his spare time, he comforts people who have gone...

I usually do a pre-interview with my guest, to kind of explain what we do, if they listen to the show, and stuff like that. However Thom’s pre-interview was so good that I had to share it. Think of this as an episode where I invite an old friend out to coffee to see what’s going on with his life. Thom is an amazing person who reminds me a lot of Derek Sivers. Thom is also a guest who loves to swea...

  Thom King is probably the best CEO I’ve ever had the chance to talk to. He’s fun, innovative, and he just loves his job and the people he works with. I had a great hour and a half talk with him on my lunch break and had to find an excuse when I got back to work. This interview is that good. Where to start from this interview… whether you’re a young professional, an old soul, or a struggling entr...

I am fortunate to interview Steve MacIntyre, as he brings a new perspective compared to the standard guests we interview here. He is the first Human Resource professional, and the only one I know who is really passionate about his industry. Like many of our guests, Steve’s career path involved a lot of twists, and turns, and ultimately, a lot of leaps of faiths. From the army, to health and safety...

  If you like what you heard, like us on facebook or set a review on itunes. It helps wonders. If you have any questions or suggestions on how to improve the podcast, don’t be afraid to email me at podcast@myfoodjobrocks.com Manuscript Looking at my calendar, I saw that this podcast actually started in June. It’s felt like a long time. A lot of things have happened while creating this podcast. I m...

Today we have Shyamoli Gramopadhye a food technologist at Dairy Concepts where she solves the technical problems of her clients in the cheese and cheese powder industry. Shyamoli is actually a very supportive writer for Foodgrads and writes articles on the site. This episode has a lot of info about India’s food scene. Not just the culinary aspect, but the industry aspect as well! Shyamoli is highl...

We have quite a unique guest today. Alex Oesterle co-owns his own creative agency, Blue Bear Creative in Boulder, Colorado. His client base is food companies where he creates marketing campaigns for food companies that target the good old millennial population. What’s great about Alex is that he also hosts his own podcast. He created Food Marketing Nerds, a podcast focusing solely on food marketin...

Today we have Jonathon Weber on the show, a young professional who works at Herbaland Naturals, a gummy company in Vancouver, Canada. Jonathon just graduated but he’s worked for so many companies! He also has chef experience, and now he’s a food technologist. This guy is really passionate on what he does. If you are currently in college. Really listen to the part about how he gets internships Othe...

I am so excited to have Sapna Thottahil join me today. Sapna has an amazing background. From her early days in food waste to her fullbright scholarship Indian Organic Farming, Sapna is very passionate on the current issues in food that are just starting to get our attention. With a  good heart, she now has a job as a Supply Chain Specialist at School Food Focus where she manages the supply chain f...

In this episode we have Dan Follese, the owner of Follese Culinary Consulting, where he goes to clients with the latest trends and brings new innovative concepts to life. Dan’s main clients are fast food companies and we go through a lot of talk about how he views new trends and his opinion on certain fast food restaurants. For example: a debate on which is better: taco bell or Chipotle. But this...

It was an honor interviewing Susie Wyshak, author of Good Food Great Business as she shows us so many useful tips on how to start a food business and how to write a book. I actually was able to meet Susie for a brief time during my trip to the Fancy Food Show, which we talk about during the episode. She even signed my copy of Good Food Great Business and you can see it in the show notes. If you ha...

We have a great guest today as Tiffany Tong, Strategic Initiatives lead at Canada’s Smartest Kitchen, enters the scene and brings with her an amazing story about doing what you should do, versus doing what you want to do. See, Tiffany didn’t start in food. Not for a long time. She was actually in the ever stable and lucrative oil and gas industry. Her switch to food seemed easy on paper, but as we...

Louis Edmond is an extremely inspiring fellow. He has loved food his whole life and decided to be a chef, until he realized that the chef isn’t the most stable job in the world. Then he dived into the world of food science in his final semester. Though he didn’t get a food science job, he worked darn hard until 6 years later, he applied for his masters, and now works as a food technologist at Adva...

Today we have Julie Bernarski, Founder and President of the Healthy Crunch Company Julie’s company makes an amazing Kale Chip product and she was so nice she sent me a whole box of it!   In my opinion, these are the biggest, most satisfying kale chips I’ve ever eaten. The flavors are crazy innovative and the kale is a nice, dark green. Though we talk a lot about the product on the podcast, I feel...

Some housekeeping items before we get into this episode. We will be going back to one episode a week starting at episode 61 to focus more time on website improvements and writing. I was fortunate to have a young food science student named Veronica Hislop reach out to me. Working together, we collaborated to make a sort of flavor article series. Check out Flavor Investigator Veronica Hislop dive in...

Today we feature Michael Kalanty, who is a man of many talents. And you learn why that’s the case. This interview is very well, timeline heavy. You learn step by step and the twists and turns between being an architecture student, chef, pastry chef, bread author, and lastly, consultant. You will learn the key points on how these happen and the catalysts that make Mike what he is today. What I love...

This was a cool connection. A graduate student from Texas A and M, contacted Katie Lanfranki and Sherrill Cropper. They did a small little interview about the different perspectives between going to graduate school and not going to graduate school. I find this so cool! Not only did people get value from the podcast, but Katie was able to benefit from it as well! I love this! So Katie asked Sherril...