R&D Radio: Food Microstructure, Ultra-Processed Foods, and the Contract Manufacturer Formula Trap with Abbey Thiel

0:02Did you hear that? That's opportunity knocking. We've been building something big. Introducing Opportunity Knocks, a new campaign giving startup CPG brands exclusive direct access to submit to leading retailers, distributors, investors, media, and more. Here's how it works. On Fridays, a new submission window opens exclusively for active Startup CPG email subscribers. Each campaign features a custom form tailored to that partner. Share your brand story, products, distribution, and traction. Startup CPG delivers your applications directly to the partner's team. Some campaigns include a live fireside chat so you can meet the partner and ask questions directly.

0:44To get every drop, subscribe at startupcpg.com slash OK. That's just the letters O and K. Today's drop is live and it's with Raley's. Ready? Go. Go subscribe. Go submit. Good luck.

1:18Bring on a food scientist early on because like I'm sure you and I, we can look at a formulation and even if everything is hunky-dory right now, you can kind of know like what are five bad things that could potentially happen and then at least you have like a game plan because as you scale up, right, these things are going to happen. They'll be like, oh, my formula is great now and I'm like, yes, because you made it in your kitchen. But when it's like sheared, when it's made in large amounts, when it's pumped, when it's at these higher temperatures, like there's several things that are going to change.

1:51Hi everyone, this is Adam Yee, food scientist and podcast host of Startup CPG's R &D Radio, where you interview food scientists and product developers and what they do and how they can help you build your CPG business. Today I'm interviewing Abby Thiel, a food scientist, science communicator, and consultant specializing in food formulation, ingredient functionality, and technical problems solving for food and beverage brands. With a PhD in food science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and postdoctoral training at Wahennigan University and research, Abby has worked across research, education, and industry innovation with particular expertise in confections and frozen desserts.

2:30She's also the creator of the YouTube channel Abby the Food Scientist, which is a six-year-old YouTube channel with over 150 ,000 subscribers. There she helps hundreds of thousands of viewers better understand the science behind food, ingredients, and processing. Abby is also passionate about making food science accessible to younger audiences. She's the creator of a candy science coloring book and a Would You Rather Food Science Edition, a book designed to get kids excited about the science behind the food that they eat every day. Throughout her work, she aims to bridge the gap between food science education and real-world product innovations.

3:07In this episode, we get into food microstructures and how that relates to sponge candy and a fascinating discussion on ultra-processed foods, and the contract manufacturing trap that we've seen that quietly kills small brands. Enjoy this episode with Abby. I'm sure you'll learn a lot.

3:26Hello, this is Adam Yu and welcome to R &D Radio for another exciting episode. And today I'm here with my friend and fellow, I guess, constant creator, Abby Feel, here to discuss a lot of things. I think, one, I'd love to hear what you're doing now, But two, you also have an awesome YouTube channel that I think everyone should listen to, especially if they're kind of starting a food company, because I think it's just you simplify it down to kind of the average everyday YouTube listener, right? Yes. Hi, Adam. It's great to be here. And yes, that's exactly why I started my YouTube channel is for many years I taught at universities, but also my friends and family had so many questions and kind of like a fun game for my brain to be like, how do I break this down so everyone can understand it?

4:09I love it. So Abby, just really quick, can you go over your background and just in general, why you started this YouTube channel and just how has it grown? It has a huge following and it's always very impressive seeing your work there. Thank you. So it's funny. I did my bachelor's through PhD in food science at UW-Madison. And it was actually during my PhD when I started this channel. And that it was purely like I needed a creative outlet. Like I had no goal, no aim. It was like I was supposed to be writing my dissertation, which really sucked. And so it was like I just had to like have something to build.

4:49And so during my PhD, I just started talking about like food science or things I was interested or teaching certain concepts. And then over the years, I continued to like I moved to the Netherlands to do my postdoc. And then it was just like I work on it on the weekends. It wasn't like a full time YouTube gig or something like that. But it slowly started to snowball. And like I said, I didn't see this coming. But like how I got into product development was like I put myself on the Internet on YouTube and then people like started contacting me. And at first I was like, you want me to help with what?

5:27Like formulate your original product or like because I didn't think about it like that. I love that. And you don't only do YouTube, you also do books as well, right? Yes. I've written a book on food science careers called, I actually have it right here, Careers in Food Science from Undergraduate to Professional. Oh, that's an official science book. What do you call it? Textbook. That's what you call it. It is. It was actually real published. But now I am getting into kids content because I just think it would be such a cool world to be in if kids grew up knowing they could become a food scientist.

5:58So I like I made like a candy science coloring book. So they like learn there's actually science behind candy. But it's like a super fun, like whimsical coloring book. And like I'd love to do more of that. So I'm in grad school right now and I'm with a high concentration of just smart, nerdy academic people. Right. What have you noticed that academics do kind of struggle with when it comes to communicating food science? Oh, my goodness. So much. I will tell you, like when I started my YouTube channel, I had no right to be on YouTube. Oh, don't say that. Because I think grad school is very isolating.

6:35Like you're doing all this work alone so many hours of the day. I was like so socially awkward. I didn't know how to be in front of a camera. I had no idea how to record, how to write a script, how to do lighting, like absolutely none of those skills. And like that's very scientist, right? And so the first couple of years, it honestly was just unlearning a lot of the things that that like the formal education system had worked so hard to teach me. Like I wrote like a scientist, right? Like if I wrote a script early on in my early days, like it had zero emotion, right? Because scientists don't write with emotion.

7:10You just like state the facts. And so it was a very long process of learning. Like a normal person doesn't want to read a scientific paper. Like you have to tell them why it's important to them. You have to include emotion or talk about, So here's one thing I did really struggle with. People like if you talk about yourself, like if you like start in a intro of a blog post saying like this is where it came up in my normal life. And that was very taboo to me at first. It felt very, very uncomfortable to be like this was happening in my life. Like, I don't know. I've learned that as well with content.

7:46Right. And I think with businesses, too, you generally want to do like a founder story. Right. And then try to build kind of rapport that way and then educate people. I guess in terms of like for beginning food businesses, it can be kind of difficult to understand what's going on in food science, right? Or what's going on in your food products specifically. And I guess what have you found to be resonating or useful to people who don't really have a good grasp on food science? That's an interesting question. I think what most people struggle with is honestly just appreciating that there's a lot of tactical aspects to food.

8:22Because, you know, like we've grown up with food all around us, but no one ever told you like there's a reason that this browns or there's a reason that this spoiled in two days instead of two months. A lot of the founders that I work with, often they contact me after like a catastrophe has occurred. And it's like, well, if you just had consulted me earlier or had any food scientist on earlier in this project, like this was predictable that all these popsicles were going to brown in the warehouse. Like there just is not a lot of knowledge that there's so much science behind food. A lot of people think there's like a lot of art behind food, especially like candy making, which I do a lot of.

9:01But it's still just telling people like this is a science, right? There is absolutely a science to it. And you should maybe get some experts involved if that's not like your background. And how many years have you kind of like worked on your Ph.D. for this? A postdoc? Six years. Love it. So, I mean, this is legitimate, though I would say like not very well known scientific field, right? Yes. And I feel like in grad school, maybe you'll notice this now that you're studying it. Like my specialty was ice cream. I was in like an ice cream confection laboratory. We did research on these products, which first off, people are like, what are you researching?

9:36And it's like so much like new ingredients, texture, how to make them more nutritious. But like that kind of blows some people's minds. but like they are actually really complex and like interesting scientific foods it's funny because like i was recently working with a very maybe small to medium candy company it was family owned zero scientists there interesting like their grandpa founded the company and he used to make all the candy it was his and it's been passed down like almost two generations now and they contacted me because like they had one candy that was just failing like they had to waste so much of it.

10:13And it was like the people that are making the candy now didn't understand. They sort of cut some of the steps out or didn't follow the process that the grandfather used to or like, did it faster or boiled things that shouldn't be boiled. And I just had them honestly send me a video of their process and gave them like 10 things that immediately made their candy better. Oh, wow. Yes. Do you have any examples like our specific cases? Because candy is all about and correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not a candy expert, but it's all about managing water and sugar and heating, right? Yes. So I can tell you about this.

10:45This was a very recent and fun project for me. Have you ever heard of sponge candy? It's like kind of a hard candy, but then you add baking soda and it aerates it into like a foam. Isn't that like an Australian thing? Might be. And then usually it's like a little square piece and then it's coated in chocolate. Yeah. It's honeycomb, right? Or is that what they call it? Oh, maybe it is called that. And so there were a couple things that at this point, so this is like a foam. So they add the baking soda and you want to keep the bubbles in, right? Like everything you want to do after that step is to keep these bubbles in.

11:18And like, I had to be like, you are specifically doing things to break the foam, which is why you can't sell this candy. Like, I want you to understand, like, I love talking about food microstructure. Like, what does it look like under a microscope? That's my favorite thing. So I'm like, imagine there's these delicate little bubbles. You need to do everything to keep that in there. But they were doing things like they were using gelatin and that's normal, but they weren't hydrating it. Like you need to treat gelatin to make it do its job. And what they were often doing was boiling it. They were putting it in boiling water, which then gelatin breaks down into tinier molecules and is not going to function the same.

11:57And so I had to be like, no, that you put it in this temperature of warm water, you never boil it. And it has to be in that water at least 15 minutes, or it's not going to be able to support the foam. Like these ingredients have a job. Once they finish it, they have it in like a big kettle, right? And they just would go like plop onto a table. And I'm like, you cannot do that with a foam. All the bubbles are going to pop. Like it's delicate. You wouldn't just like take your baby and throw it on the table. Like it's like do you want to make the money or not we like you have to be careful so it's steps and procedures that when you don't understand the science you're like kind of like why would it matter i just put the gelatin in water like then i pour it in kind of not thinking about like time really matters temperature really matters so it's like that sort of thing and i totally get if you don't have any scientific background not even saying food science like you don't think about those things.

12:57100%. You know, you remind me, I just took a food functionality course, actually, an ingredients course. And, you know, the professor there is an expert at casein specifically, right? And that's a really complicated molecule. And we just spent like, maybe like 10 lectures talking specifically about casein, right? So like, there are people who spend a lot of their, it's actually life's work figuring out sometimes even just one molecule or one system, right? Yes, absolutely. And we still don't know. No, right. And casein is such a tricky one. I actually am involved in this very interesting project still when I did my postdoc in the Netherlands is making casein via precision fermentation.

13:34So animal free casein, which you can imagine is incredible. It's super complex because casein is so crazy complex. Yeah. And people are already doing that like Perfect Day or a few other guys. But they're doing it with like whey, which is so much simpler, right? So I think that's the big feat is that you can do it with simpler molecules. It has obviously been done, but it's like how complex can you go with getting a yeast cell to create these proteins we eat? I don't know. Yeah. We had a kind of a preliminary project. I think they had to scrap it at the biotech startup I used to work with. and oh, but there's like three different subsets of casein and you can't ferment all of them because that's going to cost too much money.

14:15You know what I mean? Like, that's so interesting. Yeah, and then which one do you pick? Like, yes, I agree. I love that. So microstructure is your game. Obviously, it is a very complex topic when you talk to someone like, I guess, how do you generally explain, let's just say, for example, microstructures, right? Like, do you draw diagrams? Do you make examples? How do you generally translate really tough technical knowledge to someone like either a kid or a business owner can understand. Absolutely. For this sponge candy project, I literally drew pictures. I'm a big fan of like a little diagram using like shapes and be like, this is a air bubble, especially in something like ice cream.

14:53You have air bubbles, ice crystals, fat globules, networks. And I do this on YouTube too. Like I will make my own animations in Canva with different shapes and be like, okay. And then when we do this process, the fat globules make a network and that looks like this. because I do think for people, it's really hard to imagine that food, like what do these different molecules look like? That's really hard to imagine. And I think that if I can give them like a picture and be like, this is what you need to think of. And this is why I'm saying you need to do X, Y, and Z. That's why those steps are important that it kind of brings it to life a little bit more.

15:31Yeah. I think we're kind of taught throughout all food science, kind of these like, let's say fats or proteins or water or air. What do they do and how they interact, right? And it's a lot of technical knowledge for some. A lot of the food businesses I work with, and I'm sure you work with, don't have like the scientific degree, right? Absolutely. This is the case when I first started consulting. I was so surprised at how many don't have any type of scientist. And this is why I think I will literally get emails where the subject line is like, so-and-so desperate for help because they have like maybe a medium company.

16:05no scientists which is like they all have business backgrounds say and like I understand and respect that side I don't have that type of background but all of a sudden maybe their relationship with Walmart is at stake because they have a yellow treat and Walmart wants it to be white and they don't know how you know this one company getting it white because they have no one that can sort of like problem solve without just stabbing in the dark like how do we change it to match what Walmart at once. Like, this is millions of dollars. What do we do? And they're like, okay, then we email Abby. Well, I mean, that's such a good example of like how food scientists can be useful, right?

16:46Like we do solve these technical challenges quite often. Generally, the crisis, whether it is private development or even food safety, right? Like crises generally happen and there's a scientific reason why these crises happen, especially if things are hard to explain, right? Yeah. And this one, this was pretty basic. They just needed to aerate their syrup. They didn't realize like once you add air bubbles, it looks white, like the eye sees it differently. So like sometimes it is just blatantly obvious, but people always wait until like something very bad has happened. Yeah, right. I mean, when you array like egg whites, right?

17:21Like, yes, it's clear. And then when you whip them, they turn white, right? Because of the eye and how it looks at things. And we are used to that through our lab work, right? Yes. We do very simple experiments to kind of see that. But the average person just doesn't know. I agree. But I'm like, if my advice would be like, bring on a food scientist early on, because like, I'm sure you and I, we can look at a formulation. And even if everything is hunky dory right now, you can kind of know, like, what are five bad things that could potentially happen? And then at least you have like a game plan.

17:53Because as you scale up, right, these things are going to happen. They'll be like, oh, my formula is great now. And I'm like, yes, because you made it in your kitchen. But when it's like sheared, when it's made in large amounts, when it's pumped, when it's at these higher temperatures, like there's several things that are going to change. Yeah, one of the most common things I run into is drying ingredients, like drying different components of ingredients. And when you think about it in like an operations scale up perspective, the hours you're going to spend drying that is essentially just not worth it.

18:23And I find that always an interesting thing, especially with like finding out chili crisp companies that want to like dry their own ingredients. So many, many years ago, my first internship in the food industry was spray drying. this dryer was like two as tall as like two floors of a building and I learned so much because you think oh we'll just put in a liquid ingredient and we'll dry it and it'll be so nice you say two stories tall two stories yes okay wow wow it was huge and it was so hot in there it was disgusting to be honest you think like okay I'll just put a liquid in through the dryer and it'll come out nice and fluffy and dry and it's like no each ingredient either helps it dry dry or hurts it like fat doesn't dry very well you can't have like high fat but it was like even something you think sounds so simple let's just dry it it's like you actually have to understand the ingredients and how much you can have of each oh yes 100 % agree with that let's transition to kind of the trends you see because you kind of have this platform that does give people who i would say observe things and then reach out to you as kind of a simple barrier to entry i'd love to hear what you hear often from these like either requests what have you observed in the industry that you find really unique and interesting right now so i did not plan for this but actually i do a lot of videos of like why is every ingredient in ice cream or like every ingredient in bubblegum explained you know like why is there such a long ingredient list and i thought it would help the normal person like be like okay that's why food scientists are using this but actually what it ended up doing is I get a lot of requests for manufacturing help because I guess the people that find those videos are searching like why is my gelato why are there chunks in my gelato or like what is every ingredient in my gelato doing because I don't even understand and now there's a problem and so a lot of times like I put a video out there but somehow it attracts something I never I honestly wouldn't have predicted.

20:26I just imagine someone like frantically Google searching about like functionality of ingredients, right? Why is my gelato breaking or whatever, right? And then they find your YouTube video, right? Yes. And it's like, I got a notification from YouTube. My YouTube channel is six years old this year. And I was like, that blows my mind. And how many subscribers do you have? 150 ,000. That's a lot, man. That's amazing. Yeah. Is it still as crazy to me? Like, I can't believe it, but it was like this weird backwards way to get a lot of leads. I'm sure you see this too, Adam, with all your podcasting.

21:00But by the time I have a call with someone to get like, what is the problem? What is the scope of work? They feel like they know me. And sometimes it's weird because I'm like, this is our first meeting. And they're already like, no, I want to work with you. And I was like, you should maybe interview some other people. And they're like, no. That's great. For me, and I do a lot of podcasts, like the audio component does help kind of but i think because you have the video component and you're in a do you think so i do think so yeah i think the more sensorial aspects that you see in a person the more they know about you that could be true you should do more video no i hate my face you get used to it i will tell you you become desensitized yeah i mean it's the same with your voice right like you obviously hear your voice i hear my voice right i agree it's on the list also i don't want to deal with youtube comments that's this actually kind of the big one yeah yes this is true and pros and cons right but in general like i think it's amazing that you just people are so kind of attached to kind of your credibility and your content that they do want to work with you in some regard oh yeah so would you say that a lot of these like technical problems then this is what i'm curious about actually like we were seeing this trend of like ultra processed food right so a lot of people want to take out things have you discussed or work with people who want to take out things or have you suggest or do they generally are convinced to add something in?

22:24I would say I get a lot of work where the person their initial thing they always tell me is they want it to be natural and I have learned the hard way that I really need to probe them what exactly do you mean because everyone has a different answer to what is natural and I'll be like you need to tell me make me a list of ingredients that are absolutely not acceptable to you and ones that are acceptable to you because natural like it's difficult we all think it's something different and I've had this issue with people that want all natural so I have a subset of products that absolutely it's like we want the shortest ingredient list possible but I also feel like there's another set of projects where it's adding in an ingredient but usually it's like I feel like so many people want a chocolate or an ice cream but add protein or fiber or adaptogens or electrolytes or probiotics or prebiotics and so that's like specifically trying to squeeze an extra ingredient into like an already delicious food which is sometimes very very difficult so I think it really depends on the project right now I guess has ultra processed food coming out.

23:37I think one thing is like seed oils has been something that's been really interesting, right? Oh my goodness. Yes. We all have a different definition of seed oils too, which is kind of funny. Yes. Okay. First, I actually learned the most interesting thing about ultra processed food. There's obviously a lot of research being done because people tend to think like it's the chemicals, it's the ingredients people are adding. And that's why we're all so unhealthy now. But there's a ton of research that says it's actually more to do with the food microstructure because anything that like melts in our mouth, we don't really have to chew.

24:10We just eat so much of it because our body realizes how much we ate. Like we're supposed to like chew, like our jaw muscles are supposed to be working. But so much of a food, especially Americans I've seen, we love really soft food, like food that's already been like chewed for us. Like sandwich bread. Yes. And so our body doesn't receive the same signals because like our mouth doesn't work and we can eat really fast because we don't have to chew these foods, which is why we consume way more calories than we're supposed to. So people are thinking about it really, really wrong, being like, it's the chemicals.

24:46Actually, it's sort of like how easily broken down the structure is. That's an interesting take. It makes sense from what I hear about ultra-processed foods. I don't think it's, you defined it very well. I don't see it as a prominent argument for ultra-processing, but I think that's actually really important. It makes sense when they classify it with their ANOVA system. Right. Like it all came down. I'm like trying to think of what I read. It's more about like eating right. Like something you can eat really fast. You eat a lot of, of course. Like I do this, like give me a bag of Cheetos. And I'm like, why are the Cheetos gone?

25:15Because like I can eat them so stinking fast. We can definitely go like really in depth on this, but I love nerding out about this type of stuff. Yes. I do feel like the ultra processed food and one could argue it's very similar to like what we as food scientists worked with a clean label, I would say a decade ago. Yeah, I'd say that. Ultra-processed food, it's still hard to define. And therefore, I do think like companies and startups do have to define it very clearly, especially when working with a food scientist as well, because we also have a different definition. They also have different definitions.

25:47So aligning that is very important. Right. And I think I worked on, I don't know, I guess this would probably be considered ultra processed, but I had a really interesting project this year on like a microwavable pasta meal. It was like an Italian sauce and the noodles. I've seen so many founders run into this problem, which is why I want to share this story is this guy founded the product. It was already on the market, right? Like he's selling it. And then he got into a big argument with his co-manufacturer, which I hear this story all the time. But what he didn't know until this point was he didn't even have the formula for his own product.

26:24Yes, that happens all the time. And I was like, oh my gosh, you have to think about like ownership and who has the formula. So what he had to hire me to do was reverse engineer his own product. Like he sent me the product and I had to give him the actual formula, like make the formula because he did not have the recipe. He did not even have any processing conditions like times or temperatures. And I'm like, you can't. You don't have control then. Right. Yeah, that's actually one of the biggest pitfalls I've been hearing quite often. Right. Not having the IP set with your contract manufacturer because, you know, they have a purpose in their business.