Julie Drainville of Edlong Flavor Solutions

what do we got here all right so I have a little thing for you

to taste this is a demo to kind of um uh show you like what it is that our

flavors can bring to a product so this is a nose clip okay so you're going to

oops you're gonna put this like pinch your nose with

it okay go ahead now taste a jelly bean just one

just one chew it see what you think before you swallow

release the nose

clip oh wow so what did you experience when it your nose was clipped

um other than my breathing but it tasted almost vanilla at first and when I took

the nose clip off I was eating popcorn almost felt like yes was that right or was this a quiz yep exactly yeah so when

your nose is clipped you're only getting the basic tastes on your tongue in your

mouth so that would be sweet sour salt bitter and Umami oh interesting so you

shouldn't get any flavor so if you got something vanilla e that's probably just your Association or you kind of like

thinking what it might be because it's white probably the visual yep and then

when you release it that allows air to come through the back of your throat and the volatile components of the flavor

travel up to the same place like where you would smell things oh it's fascinating because what I thought you

were gonna say the portion that you did say is that you know all your senses kind of work together for like an

experience but it never occurred to me that it's air coming from the back like

from inside my head Y and not just what I can smell right because you hear that a lot with wine tasting right let it

breathe and all that so yeah oh that's fascinating yeah so um yeah so what um

edlong makes is flavors and so that would be things that can go into food

products that would give you those characterizing notes of its cheesy or it's buttery you know tastes like butter

popcorn that's super cool so I was right this sample 574 yes yes these white

jelly beans yeah that's awesome uh are are you involved with the uh Jelly Bean

Jam Boozle game oh I have played that yes it's edl long responsible for the uh

the probably I'm guessing you don't focus on making things that taste like wet socks or whatever the well if that's

what our customer wants we might I would not want to do the sensory testing [Laughter]

Bean Boozle game yeah Bean Boozle that's what called awesome cool guys this yeah

what are these here yeah so these are um some um references that we use for

different types of um Dairy flavor components so this one is a Nutty um

note oh yeah big time so um these are

actually um like components that the flavorist would use within our flavor

okay um so if we want to develop um like a grass bed milk um so that's a green

grassy that's awesome yeah so that's a compound called CIS cis3

hexanol um so that would be like one of the tools that they might use but um to

to come up with a flavor this one's kind of an interesting one the name name on

this says pukey pukey I embrace myself for this oh man

yeah I won't tell a story about what that smells like but but piness is

something that you get in cheeses a lot right oh that's true yeah yeah interesting yeah I like that the that

that brings like some of the authenticity to like the experience that you're cre creating with the different flavors yeah yeah so so we use those

references in a few different ways so like from a sensory standpoint um I have

to train my panelists so we want to use people that um are familiar with the

different notes and we do that by training them so they would we would have those um markers they would sniff

them and then we would all align that that is a term that's how we're going to call puki or that's what we're going to

call nutty gotcha we could say we feel like the nuttiness that we're tasting in

this cheese is really more um uh peanut like or pecan like yeah so

maybe we would need a different reference for like a specific type of nutty interesting and that that does

make sense because there's so many different variants of flavor right like

um you know I obviously I'm not experienced so tastes like vanilla like I I don't have options it's interesting

that you have to codify those conversations well Julie usually it's my responsibility to come up with something

interesting to start the conversation with so I appreciate you showing me up on that and that was uh that was more

fun than my typical rambling questions I'm glad pass the test and I passed the

test too yeah I'm an excellent taster my resume is uh in the mailbox um so before

we get started and I and I you know start talking about edlong and the company and your role as well I want to

first talk about the room that we're sitting in a little bit and part of this is uh we might hear some noises turning

turning on and off which I think is cool um one of my favorite things about this podcast is when I do get to do them on

site is you know my office building is an office building right there's rooms

everyone's on Zoom calls you know that sort of thing um I just always get excited to be in what feels like a shop

room floor and machinery yeah so would love to hear just a little bit about this room we're sitting in yeah so um we

call this our pilot plant um area so we have some different tools different equipment in here that are is used to um

uh make the flavor in some cases like the spray dryer um then we have a lot of equipment that we use um to kind of like

mimic uh food production so that we know that our flavor is like with

withstanding like a heat process that they might use for beverage development um or um that it's going to

work the right way in a cracker or a fried application so all of those different processes can affect the way

the flavor comes out so we want to make sure that we tested it in those real life applications that's very cool so

before you're shipping it out and letting your customers see if it works you're doing a lot of those tests in here and that sort of thing exactly yeah

okay very cool yeah well we might hear some F turn on and on and machines uh

pipe up and down but uh to me that adds to the uh adds to the excitement yes

it's real life what I'm dealing with all the time so awesome so you quizzed me I'm gonna

do a quick quiz for you okay all right this particular food item 40%

fructose oh my gosh 30% palmitic and it actually uses yellow orange

e101 uh orange juice you're not supposed to know the answer to this uh uh as G

say ahead said the answer is banana so uh you shared a post uh on um I think it

was on LinkedIn and it had all these chemical ingredients yes and the takeaway that I thought so well done

yeah the takeaway was you were describing a banana yes and when we think about the things that eat and we

think of the word chemical um I think it's such an important understanding

that like we're made of chemicals chem like that is and all natural food is yes and it just brought such an interesting

it shed an interesting light on what you do here at edlong yeah um in terms of recreating those things from a lot of

the same building blocks um so that was that was my uh my attempt at uh at

quizzing oh I like that yeah I'm glad yeah I'm glad you pointed that out because I think it is so important

because you know chemicals especially in food really scare people right um but as

you say everything is made up of chemicals so when you take a look at a banana or any natural product food um

that that's what it's made up of and so that's what we T what we try to do um to

recreate flavors um in a way that they can be sold you know in food products

you know generally it's fascinating yeah so all right we kind of jumped right into some things we love to just kind of

say a little bit of step back uh start by learning a little bit about edlong your role and then maybe we can discuss

you know some of the challenges that you're helping your clients with um so and so for it so is it cool to start

there yeah yeah that's great um yeah so um edlong um is a uh H flavor

manufacturer so the ingredient we sell to other um food um manufacturers um is

flavor so that can usually look on your label when um you know as a consumer of

natural flavor or natural and artificial or artificial flavor um so that's really

what we sell and we're specialized in um Dairy profiles so that would be like

cheeses uh butter milk and cream and then kind of like sweet dairies so

whether that be caramel or Dolce dele um things like that interesting and

so the the types of clients you're working with and I I'm I won't ask you to assuming there's probably some uh

secrecy among that but um these are companies or brands that are bringing products to Market are they um we just

kind of love to know the types of the types of things they're coming to you with yeah so um we can sell into all

sorts of different food products that you would find in the grocery store or food service or restaurants um and that

could be like think um plant-based milks or coffee creamers um beverages like

that um um you know milk flavors would be used in like coffee drinks lattes

things like that um and then also like snack seasoning so so many different

cheese profiles and different um snacks um what else all sorts of different

products cereals um plant-based cheeses yeah like

that interesting and um I said interesting because of the the plantbase

so obviously a topic that comes in and out of uh many of our our social lives

right is um a lot of the plant-based products that are coming to Market um

and I think I well you know this uh I took a couple months last year and I I

watched some special and it was plant-based versus meat-based but the same diets and I was like I'm GNA try

this out see what this is I I purposely knew I was only going to do it for about a month and a half or whatever and so uh

but ate completely vegan was a fun experiment um I learned to stay away from the frozen food section um but

during that it seemed Dairy is is commonly the thing that makes it hard

for people to convert to vegan the substitutes for dairy ends up being one of the hardest and for me it was cheese

right yeah couldn't do it everything everything kind of relied on a cashew um so I remember getting bags and bags of

cashews and I I don't know if I can eat cashews anymore I so many cashews um

with that said are you seeing any sort of Trends in terms of the things that people are asking uh asking your

organization to create in terms of flavor profiles is that challenge of uh

things of of cheese right um is that something that comes up for you all oh

all the time yeah for sure and and we kind of see waves of different things so

um in the beginning we worked a lot on plant-based cheese um and I would say the challenge there is we can get some

really great flavors to come through but it's all of the other ingredients so the way the cheese

melts um you know you have to use starches and fats and things to to make

up everything else so it's not just the flavor it's the whole um it's the whole

experience you know that that changes um and then um

um um then we also saw a lot of um cream cheese like plant-based cream cheese

sour cream um and then of course the milks as well y yeah is there any one

product that's doing better than the others that you're seeing like like we've got milk figured out but aged guda

has been a challenge for people any sort of interesting trends like that you know

I think um some of the stronger cheeses is um like you know cheddar you might

have a better um chance of like um getting like the profile right at least

um it's difficult when you look at like mozzarella mozzarella is very neutral

like kind of a bland cheese in general it's like milky um you know you don't have a lot

to help you out on the flavor side um so then some of those like I said the what

we call like the base notes so the starch and the oil and um the other ingredients that you're that you're

using if people are trying to do a protein in there that can get different off notes that that then you need flavor

or flavor can help you know to kind of like cover up or and that you know that

touches on to so we started with you running an experiment on me um and just

in know conversations we've had we've had before so much more goes into flavor than just the the taste of the substance

yeah um I would love to know a little bit more about uh kind of your role in the team that you lead and how do you go

about that so whatever the easiest ways to explain it maybe maybe of a recent time your

team was developing a flavor um or if I walked in here and said hey I want to

launch a new cheese what types of questions am I getting asked what types of things is the team doing what did

that process look like yeah um yeah I guess I didn't didn't really say my role um so um I'm the director of sensory and

Innovation um so two kind of like different um roles typically that um are

overlapping for me but um so on the sensory side um we're looking at you

know what does it taste like does it taste like this how do we get it to taste more like this so using like those

kind of references to understand like where where are the gaps in the flavor

profile and then that we can relate to the flavorists who then know what to add

and um to change things um and then on the Innovation side um so we're kind of

like looking a little bit deeper into ingredients so okay what are the ingredients that could be used to um

let's say like increase salt perception that's something that we're working on right now um that's very big of course

in the US but especially in Mexico because they have some different um labeling laws where they have to put um

they call it a black seal on the front of the pack if anything is like high in salt sugar or fat in Mexico that's a

thing interesting yeah yeah um so um so we want to look at flavors that could

enhance the salt they could reduce the sodium in their products so they don't have to you have that label that

consumers think it's a bad food now for me right um and then um but we you could

add something that's natural flavor onto your label and then that would help with the overall profile yeah

um I think that kind of answered your question no yeah no that is interesting and so some of the stuff so thanks again

for the tour uh of of the facility I know this is only one of the locations yeah um but one of the areas you took me

through was a was a sensory I call it sensory tasting lab to describe it

essentially an individual sits down they' uh and there was like a window that would be opened and samples would

be passed over and there's a computer to kind of take it down so what are some of the things that they're I'd love to know

more about that process are they just taking a sip and saying I like it I don't like it or are they trained and

what types of yeah yeah so um I think typically like when I explain to people my job

that I'm a sensory scientist and I run taste tests with people is like an easy

way to say it right people immediately want to give their feedback on something so how how much they like it um why they

don't like this product what they would change um so that's um a type of test

called a consumer test um so that's getting consumer feedback to try to

improve your your product okay um so typically that's done with a finished

product in the food world because you have something ready to go you want to know how it's going to respond with your

consumers um so because edlong is like a B2B company we don't always have our end

product that we want to test with consumers so what um what we do here for

our sensory team um is a bit more um like internally focused so you could

think about it like analytical type testing in nature so we use different

methods and panelists um to

uh try to Define our product um so there's a few different methods that we

use um one is called a discrimination test so that that's done to try to

understand um if products are similar or different so when you think about like

cost savings you might need to replace a raw material but you don't want your

consumer your customer to know that there's a difference you want it to be seamless right um so we would run

testing to ensure that people don't see a difference there interesting okay and

we do that with trained um panelists so our um our panelists are employees so

we've screened them we know that their like basic sensory acuity um is up to a

level where um we think they would be good participants um and then we also train

them so we train them in that method so like they understand what what your task

is from um a testing perspective um and then so that's kind

of like one panel and then we have like just called like a higher level panel

which is um they are a little bit more trained on like the actual terms um so

they understand like um the different nuances of cheese and um the different

profiles that we would use um and then that is a panel called a descriptive

analysis panel um and they're also highly trained to a scale and um with that panel we can kind

of like pick aart um different products or flavors um so they um like say we

would look at um a plant-based um cheddar cheese and we want it to taste

more like a real cheddar cheese so we could profile both of those and know

that the intensity of um the sweaty note is a bit lower and we want to up that um

the intensity of the sourness um if you think about like basic taste you could

look at that too and then also we are very focused on flavor but you can also

look at texture that way too so we could say this cheese is a bit gummier or

softer you know things like that as well interesting yeah so that that we use a

lot um to kind of like um

uh create the create a flavor in a different direction right so like we if

we want to match like something different so I got the questions yeah uh

so I don't know if I've ever heard of a flavor being described as sweaty oh

before and so and I want to dive in here so my industry uh has some words too

that I find funny or interesting uh my my favorite one is is information scent

so when and so you we're talking about like you know building a website or something if the person has a good idea

of where to go somewhere is because you're leaving a nice information scent that's always like a fun word like that yeah and it might be part of my

personality but I love knowing those fun words in different Industries so I can like I what I'm know what I'm talking

about but um sweaty profile tell me a little bit about some of the nomenclature or some of those words that

your team uses if I wanted to sound as professional as the people here going through one of those taste tests what

are what are some of the fun ones yeah I mean sweaty is one pukey P like those

yeah and those two are often together like you can you can if you get one

sometimes you get the other you know um and those are actually like different acids so so puky would be like a butc

acid oh okay then that's you know one of the things that's known for that and uh

sweaty is like isovic acid um so different I love isobaric

acid um and I mean those are naturally occurring in cheeses okay right so

that's why why you get those some of those different notes

um other kind of interesting terms I mean cabbage

eggy those sound normal when you smell them like sometimes those are the ones

that if I'm carrying these little pens around in my bag or something that yeah

like you just want to get rid of you know I mean that'll start stinking up the place um do you and so speaking of

that and also I'm just thinking of chees so if I look at my my own family I um I

love the stinky cheese oh yeah I love it I might be the only person yeah now when

someone is is an employee here and it's their job to taste it do you have is that a thing where they can say I'm out

for this or are certain people like are they just have to grin and Barrett whatever they're tasting you know I

would say blue cheese is probably one that we is like very polarizing right um

so that is one people are usually professional to

say I don't like this but I'm going to do it for you you know kind of thing um

do you make you make the new person has to do all the pukey tests and like y um but yeah I I mean we try to leave

liking out of it um but there are you know if if I know somebody doesn't like

like something I will try to leave them out

so um okay so in your role coordinating

organizing um making sure that the the uh sensory experience and the flavoring

and everything else like that and getting all of this data what um what does that look like and I like asking

the question what's something that you spend an unexpected amount of time on that one might not

think um two things I guess um when you say the data piece um we didn't really touch on

that but like so when all of this data is collected right like we're asking people to rate things on scales um

that's definitely another piece to to the sensory world is um running the

statistics on it so you know making sure that that data is accurate but then you

know what does it mean so sure you know um so I would say that and then um

another thing would be um like setting up the test so typically you know for a

sensory test you would have I don't know a hundred little cups filled like with

your three-digit code so we put a three-digit code on it so that doesn't bias people um and then you have to fill

up every one of those little cups you know with with whatever you're testing so that's definitely a Time

suck I would imagine um in my world we do a lot of uh like usability testing

you know where we want to see how are people using this digital product or something and it's it's there's an art

and science to it because um you know we always have there's a Old Henry Ford

saying if ask people what they want they're going to say more horses right um but then the other side of that is

not wanting to lead the witness so I find we do a lot of things so that people have a they know the task but

then we limit how much other we try to limit all their variables and so it sounds like for instance everyone's

Cup's probably the same size and and what are some of those things that you do to limit that environment exactly

yeah because there's that psychology piece to it right so you want to make sure that you're not leading people

you're asking them questions in a way where you're getting the real resp response so like in your case you don't

want them to be trying to prove to you that they can you know navigate these things you want to know like how they

would really use it um yeah so um that's kind of you know a big part of the

sensory science field is that a lot of the the methods that we use um take that

into account so um when I talked about the Discrimination test we use a method

called the tetrad test so you have um two control and two tests and they're

mixed up and then people are trying to group them into you know two similar groups um and so you have a chance of

getting that right by chance right um right um so that take that is taken into

account when you run the statistics of you know things interesting yeah and

then um another thing like the visual is so important so like we're just we're

just testing flavor so we often don't care about the visual right but that

makes a difference you look at those jelly beans and you see yellow you're automatically going to think it's lemon

or something so in fact that happened to me I said vanilla because they're to me they're white but my eyes are a little

bit off they're are yellowish white to be fair um and yeah and as I was going

to ask like do you ever like change the color but the everything else is the same to you know throw them for a loop

type of thing or I mean actually kind of the opposite um I mean we could do that but um we actually like so in those boo

um where we do the uh sensory testing um there's red lights in them so you can

change the color of the the light so if you know that there's a color difference

but you don't you don't want to take that into account you just want people to focus on the flavor you turn those

red lights on it masks the color difference and then you're able to you know get a

read on just the flavor without that taking into account that is interesting

yeah that makes a lot of sense we um that's funny we I installed color

changing light bulbs in our kitchen and so we you know Alexa kitchen Color

Purple right and then our food just looked crazy and it was hard it's hard to eat in there um okay that's very

interesting so what are some of the um so as a consumer I am aware and I think I said

this already but I'm aware that there's a lot of Trends towards plant-based food

I'm aware that Dairy has been a challenge um what are kind of the big conversations that are coming up with

your clients or in the industry that sort of things what's what is the flavor

industry talking about right now yeah I mean I I I like this question because

like this is kind of originally why I got into this field because my education

is was all in nutrition so I studied dietetics and um but I really kind of

saw that Gap as you know people won't eat things if they don't taste good

right right so I love like the sensory field because you know we're really kind of like getting into like how can we

make it taste better you know we know consumers are looking for less sugar higher

protein um less salt less iium um but if

it doesn't taste good you're not going to buy it again right um so I do think

like those are kind of still like the hot things like there's a lot of ingredients people look to add like

beneficial ingredients um protein is still I would say number one and it's

one of the most challenging so we see that a lot like our flavors are good for masking So like um kind of covering some

of those off notes that you would get um like PE protein is still big like

that that was um one that we work on a lot um and then um reducing sugar so you

take out the sugar it's not only in there for the sweetness but it's also like adds function so that can create

issues um with things um but yeah we can

also then add flavor so if you think about it you added a vanilla flavor that's going to give your mind kind of

like trick trick your mind into thinking it could be sweeter you know then or it

just tastes good now you know right like um so interesting on that and I've heard

you say this before but you know food texture has a I mean I guess a lot of people said this but texture has so much

to do it how much is so if you are developing the flavor and you're delivering it to the client and the is

the texture something that you play a role in with them or is that kind of on them to figure out um I would just love

to know how texture plays into some of your processes um so typically our

customers will give us like the their ingredients that they're using and that

they modify the texture um but I will say we've been doing a lot of research

um into like how Aroma plays a part in this and you kind of touched on that too like the whole eating

experience um so I've been really surprised with like the research that

that I've seen is that it it plays a big part so we call it like a cross modal

interaction so although you get when you pinch your nose you only get the basic taste it still changes the perception so

we could from like um descriptive analysis panel we could say like the

intensity of the the sweetness intensity of that um Jelly Bean when your nose is pinched as a five and then when you

release it and you get flavor to come with it maybe it would go up to a seven

so you can you can change the perception of different

things like with other um sensory modalities you know

yeah and and one that we've seen is a textural component I guess is like when

you think about what's creamy so um to me like that's not a good term because

it can mean so many different things and there's like a lot that goes into that but we can see that adding a cream

flavor to something can increase a consumer's perception of creaminess oh

which I think is really cool because you would think that is just a textural feeling that you get right whereas like

just the aroma compounds can change that oh that's fascinating yeah yeah I so

your job is getting harder and harder the more than I think think about this because you know on on the surface

flavor okay that sounds easy you know to to you know an amateur yeah um but all

the different variables that impact how that flavor is perceived um I would imagine that's got

to be challenging in terms of um you know how how it's perceived in the end

consumer as you're delivering to clients um you know I've certainly been in situations where the thing that we were

doing was great and then how it was handled maybe wasn't the best or whatever but there's all these variables

that you can't it seems like you might not be able to control all those different things in in the delivery um

that is so interesting what and if you don't have an answer for this I apologize what has been the hardest type

of a flavor to

deliver or CH or challenging flavor you know like cultured Dairy notes come

to mind um that would be like I mean buttermilk is like a good reference for

that but like also like cream cheese sour cream um it's just like a very like

delicate flavor note I feel like and um but we we've definitely had some luck in

creating that you know that that note interesting

um very cool uh so dairy in

particular um you know they is a common saying on you know rather than try and

be great at everything pick one thing and be yeah the best is there a story behind how edlong decided to focus on

Dairy among all other things yeah so um we have been around for over a

hundred years and um our um Roots I guess um started in like

Dairy compounding okay um with dairy ingredients and and that was kind of

where it all started and that's just like why they continued um to focus on that you know our chemists are are um

specialized in Dairy which is you know unique different it's not

everybody um gets that into it I guess like in depth so yeah yeah it's just

it's been a good place for us I guess over the years absolutely and does um so

walking around the halls here I notice a lot of cow art yes and the question I

think I might know part of the answer so there there are no cows amongst us no in this room and I thought to myself are

they being cute or does do cows kind of play into you know that that's what I think most people think of as dairy um

in terms of products that you're that you're creating uh do they play a role

um no I think it's just the yeah just the dairy um Dairy piece we do have a um

conference room called the barn but you're right we don't have any cows in there no I think it's just kind of a

play on yeah awesome um such an interesting industry

so uh you know for folks Len this I guess another question I have is you know sometimes when you know

a lot of information about a certain kind of Niche area it makes it like I would imagine if

I was an airline pilot going to the airport with my family is a totally different experience than it would be

for someone who's not yeah um what are some of the things that are top of mind

uh in kind of being so heavily involved like is is it possible for you to get out a piece of cheese and just eat it or

are there things you think about are there things that we should be thinking about yeah um yeah um it's funny um I

can really like turn it off you know like so I you know we can go out to dinner and like I'm not g to critique

every little thing um but there's definitely people in my industry um in

in you know even here that are a bit more critical and you know I feel like

have a harder time turning it off so we go to a sensory conference and you know you go out to dinner or to lunch and

everybody's talking about you know the different different things that they know about you know from from their

industry um but I do feel like too that's that's something that we try to

um um make sure that it's standardized when we're doing sensory tests and there's a reason for that right so like

that's why we have this um room that where we do our sensory testing um and

it has um you know better ventilation so you're not getting all the smells in

there um and the the lighting is standardized and um and all of that

because you you want to try to eliminate you know all of those outside um things that can can trickle

in so if if you're at a restaurant you know you might feel a certain way but then if you had it in this controlled

area you might notice different things so I feel like that about myself like I'm a better taster when I'm in that

zone you know like well I can say I'm a better cheese taster when I've got a bottle of wine

yes maybe not whole bottle but the pairing of the the pairing of the wine maybe that's what you're used to I'm

used to my sensory Zone you're used to your yeah you know well it's funny because you mentioned mozzarella and

you're like which doesn't really have a taste I never thought about it but it doesn't it kind of doesn't yet I want more of it yes why is that yeah I mean

it's just the perfect combination right it's a fat it's salt you know all the

things it's got all the good stuff in there that everyone wants us to take out right and you're solving you're solving

the mozzarella problem uh with the flavoring awesome so uh couple things

that um love to get some insights on is is there is there anything kind of

coming down the pike in in this type of Market are we on some major Trend or

breakthrough or you mention the the sensory conferences and people are all talking

yeah what is kind of the future of the world of flavoring and things like that is there anything things to be thinking

about that are top of mind yeah I mean I think there's really exciting things going on um I mean there is a huge

consumer push for healthier foods so that's that's great you know that's

that's how it's going to get done because if people have to still buy it right right um and there's a lot of

research being done in that space um the other thing would be um like more

sustainable Foods so that's also a push from consumers you know like um people

are looking for that sort of thing um how we can feed the um you know global

population in 20 50 years um so there's a lot of interesting research in um

fermentation like cellular gran um ingredients things like that um so we

look at that in um Dairy especially okay um so one of the things that I've seen

because I've tasted some of these products um is that right now they're growing individual components say of

dairy okay so you could have a cellular grown um caseine but it doesn't it's not

it's still not milk right it's just one component of milk so then that component

has to go into something so it really kind of still tastes like a plant-based um milk sure because they're

still using oils or um other things to

to build out that whole milk um so I think when we get to the point where you

know the entire milk you know is that's still it's still reachable yeah that's

that's going to be really cool um and and I hope consumers come along with

that you know that it's okay it's still healthy you know it's still still a

great product and people aren't afraid of that sort of thing but yeah 100% And

I I think it's it's interesting because obviously food supply and everything is

I mean since the dawn of time right has been something that uh changes cultures and

civilizations and everything else and has a lot to do with um you know the ENT

ire economy right is is tied to food it's one thing you got to do right is is eat and get your protein um what I think

is really interesting and I never really thought about it until this conversation as we were talking earlier is coming up

these different flavors all the things that that's actually enabling uh for society so one of the

things you mentioned several times was uh cost savings yeah um I think we were

talking about aged cheese and how long that takes if we could come up with that

different ly yeah um and that ultimately impacts the consumer another thing you'd

mentioned was uh shelf life yeah right something I never thought about yeah is

the the the milk that's available at school um I thought that's milk yeah I

so yeah um what are some other things that that you've seen

uh coming up with the different flavorings that are that are

enabling um um and I might have just covered the two big ones you did um yeah I mean I think I

think that's just like in general like some of those issues um so you know

people say like why wouldn't you just add a strawberry to make it taste like a strawberry like why do you need flavor

to do that um and it's you know because of the processing and you know a lot of

a lot of different things like how yeah do you want it to be Shelf stable do you you know does it have to be

refrigerated um uh processing so like have you is it heated so you lose the

flavor um or you don't want that textural component um food safety you

know is another one so yeah yeah it's it's fascinating to me

um okay so kind of looking at the world the in

and also kind of your the world looking at the world of edlong right um and also your day-to-day what are

some of the things that um I like to ask a question that keep you up at night

hopefully nothing but in terms of thinking about um the job or some of the

bigger challenges or things in that because I mean right now you're balancing like 10,000 different things

with the environmental effects of saying yes we nailed it yeah on a flavor what

are what are some of the things that come to mind with that um I guess um like one of the pieces of innovation

which I really like is the the research aspect so um you know we can we can look

at you know one ingredient here one ingredient here one ingredient here but what happens when we use those in

combination can we get you know a synergistic effect that would really like make it so much better um you know

you can there's so many different variables that you can look at so I like that kind of like designing an

experiment um you know running the testing trying to decide then like what

you do with that data what you know you do with the information um it sometimes

like can feel very like overwhelming like there's so many different things to test right but oh yeah um but I kind of

like like getting getting into that you know that's interesting and then so I I

mean I could only imagine so I occasionally I'm the one cooking at home yeah and uh and I'm a taster yeah right

I kind of keep you know I probably shouldn't advertise it of course new spoon every time newon yeah um but what are some of the things that

maybe come up as you're as you're kind of narrowing in on something so is it more

science uh and running statistics and Analysis or is

it when do we say let's bring in the people yeah

um that's kind of actually come up recently um where let's bring in the people

earlier on you know like um let's if we know that we have a um a customer that

is might be interested in this technology that we've we've just done proof of concept testing we we haven't

tested it in all the applications and all the things um but maybe we bring it to that customer and say you know do you

want to partner with us here or you know because they have they have the consumer

that then will tell them if if that's if that's good if it's you know needs

work um yeah so I think sometimes it can kind of be like a balancing act right

like how much work do you want to do ahead of time or do you want to try to

bring it out to your people sooner you know yeah yeah yeah um and I I have to

ask so I know that a lot of the you said you're using employees and stuff like that um is that a full-time job for

someone to come in and taste all day or are they you've got different folks doing multiple things and yeah so for us

they're they have other other jobs okay so it might be um you know an hour an

hour a day gotcha at the most yeah that they would come in um but there are

definitely people out there there's um sometimes people have like what they

would call like outside panelists or whatever that um that would be their job so they would come in just to do sensory

testing they get paid for that and then they yeah move on you know I feel like that would be a that would be a cool job

yes or horrible depending depending depending how how it all goes okay um

well awesome this is uh it's been totally fascinating to uh to learn everything that kind of goes on uh here

and it's it's um I appreciate the tour too I almost wish we could walk around

and bring the bring the camera with but um for everyone else I I got a tour of

of multiple Labs we've got test kitchens we've got a whole room of different

ovens and cooking and I thought that was just such a fascinating thing that um

when the product that you're delivering has dependency on the C on your your client on what they're going to do with

it the amount of things that they eventually do with it that you're doing here first to also build that into the

process um exactly is something that I had never really really thought of before but makes makes a whole lot of

sense right yeah um okay awesome so in in

closing uh in your group and in your role if

someone came in and said hey Julie guess what we're going to add $10 million to your budget this

year what are ideas that come to mind that you think would be interesting in terms

of uh improving the JB other other than cashing the check and go right yeah um

so Consumer Testing as we kind of talked about like we don't do that as so much here um but it can be expensive because

you need to bring all these people in you need to manage that um but I think it's a great area of like understanding

the market trends things like that um so so I guess that is where I would want to

spend my money is is kind of like understanding what drives a consumer to like this cheese versus this cheese in

you know a plant-based application versus a dairy application versus a chip

or something yeah you know so I'd like to kind of like understand a bit more about like how um consumer

profiles um or consumer liking kind of pairs with profiles that we have yeah I

love it anytime ask that question and it's I don't know if it's a trick question yeah but depending on the one

thing that is consistent that comes out of people ask it to is you get kind of to the

core of what's on their mind in the product or service or job or whatever they're doing yeah and I think it's um

you're the right person for the job if you land on humans right how if it how

if you know heyy I made this taste like but do people like it yeah um it does really come down to that so

it does yeah awesome Julie thanks so much for the time uh and for the tour

and for the uh taste testing and and the nose clamp yes yeah you can take that home to your kids all you don't want to

put that one back in the mix for somebody else all right awesome thanks so much this is great

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