About Me

rachel@theintrepidculinologist.com

Education:

Some people take awhile to figure out what they want to do in life. For some odd reason, which I still can’t figure out today-I decided at the age of 18 that I wanted to be a food scientist. I was living overseas at the time and had no outside influences suggesting that I do this. I remember seeing the major listed in the U-Mass glossy college guide that had been sent out to me-and thinking… Hmmm, Food Science-THATS what I want to do. The rest is history!

• BS in Food Science from the University of Massachusetts ’94
• MS in Food Science from the University of Illinois, ‘96
• AOS in Culinary Arts from the Art Institute NYC  ’00

15 Years Later-What  Am I Doing Now?

I am a independent consultant for several food companies including the Walnut Board of California and Nest Collective Inc.  You can find me demo’ing walnut creations at IFT 2011 in New Orleans!  I write articles for Culinology, Food Product Design and the World of Food Ingredients and I now write a weekly blog for Food Product Design magazine covering topics from food safety to trade shows to R&D insights.  My latest venture-a food science/culinology referral service “A La Carte Connections” bringing together technical minded food consultants and the companies that need them-at a reasonable and fair price for both client and consultant!

I LOVE being an independent food science consultant. Every day I get to deal with new technical food challenges. But I could not be where I am today if I had not worked in the biz for over 15 years and worked with some of the greatest food scientists in the world.

Other Jobs I Had:

After I graduated with a BS and MS in Food Science back in 1996, my first job was at Dannon Yogurt (Fort Worth, Texas), working on improving the yogurt texture (via live and active cultures) of their set cup fruit on the bottom (AKA FOB) yogurt.

Then I moved to Tenafly, NJ and spent about 3-1/2 years working as a food microbiologist at Unilever, in the MST division (Margarines, spreads and toppings), then I went to Culinary school in NYC, then I moved to California and spent a few years working at various restaurants including Michael Mina’s Pisces and random catering jobs.

I spent two years working for LSG Skychefs as a cold floor production supervisor and finally, back in 2004 ended up at Kagome USA as a chef, developer, ideator, and manufacturer.