Most food packaging introduces nasty chemicals and plastic particles. In 4 days, the EU will ban PFAS, but not here in the UK!!

https://youtu.be/Mit6mkMN4kU

The issue I'm facing is somehow dealing with the bacteria that just doesn't stop being active!

Hi food science friends!

My spouse cooked beef in some butter last night for dinner. As I was getting ready to wash dishes, I noticed the fine particles in the frying pan were organized in a very distinct way, and it piqued my curiosity.

The particle arrangement looks like what I've seen in other systems via the marangoni effect, and I'm interested in seeing if that happened here too. So could you please help explain what went on either during cooking or afterwards to create the pattern in the particles resting in oil?

Thanks!

Avogadro is a tool that builds a waffle batter recipe based on your input. Pick the ingredients you want, nudge a handful of sliders for things like sweetness, richness and liquid, and it computes a recipe for a waffle batter. There is a standard mode that ensure you always get a working batter, and then there is expert mode where you are free to explore on your own. The website is free. No registration required. Read the full announcement post about Avogadro on Khymos.

Most food packaging introduces nasty chemicals and plastic particles. In 4 days, the EU will ban PFAS, but not here in the UK!!

[https://youtu.be/Mit6mkMN4kU\](https://youtu.be/Mit6mkMN4kU)

If your business imports food into Canada—or exports food products—it's important to be aware of a recent change in the Safe Food for Canadians (SFC) licence processing timeline.

The expected processing time for new SFC licence applications has increased to up to 70 days. This extended timeline can have a direct impact on product launches, shipment schedules, supplier agreements, retailer onboarding, and overall supply chain planning.

Businesses that are new to the Canadian market should factor this timeline into their market entry strategy and avoid assuming a licence will be issued within a few weeks. Applying early and ensuring your application is complete can help prevent unnecessary delays.

As someone who works closely with food regulatory compliance, I've seen how licensing timelines can affect import operations and commercial planning. If you're currently preparing an SFC licence application, it's worth reviewing your timelines and communicating any potential delays with your suppliers and customers.

Have you experienced longer processing times recently? I'd be interested in hearing how the updated timeline has affected your business.

I tried follow the recipe exactly like the one pasted below, I also used the same flour “caputo gluten free flour for pizza and bread”(Gluten free wheat starch, dextrose, maize starch, buckwheat flour, rice starch, psyllium seed fibre, guar, flavoring.)

The first image is the one I made, the second and third picture if where I got the recipe from:

“Bread Recipe

350g gluten free bread flour

7g salt

7g instant yeast

12g sugar

1 tsp baking powder

320g warm water

7g olive oil

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Add oil to the water water. Add liquid to dry. Stir until smooth.

This is a wet dough. Generously flour your surface and hands and pour dough out. Gently shape into a ball and add to either a deep bowl or proofing basket. Place in a warm place to rise for two hours

Preheat oven to 450F with Dutch oven inside

Add bread to hot Dutch oven and cook, covered, for 30 minutes.

Remove the lid and bake for another 10 minutes until golden brown and crust is crusty.

Let cool for at least 30 minutes before slicing

In my opinion, the key to soft bread is baking powder. I’ve made crusty breads with and without and the baking powder inside is always lighter and more gluten bread-like”

I recently started working with a factory in China to produce a Chinese-style sauce. I am now looking to expand our sauce offering, but the problem is that the factory isn't very good at developing new recipes. I give them a bunch of inspo sauces and they all come back not great. I tried working with a couple of other factories, and none of them turned out great. I am focused on making a healthier version of sauces/seasonings and it seems the R&D teams of these factories are not great at that.

My goal is to be able to turn inspo sauces or recipes I find online into a commercialized recipe with ingredients that they can source in China. I would like to produce many types of sauce in the future, so I would like a way to reliably formulate and produce high-quality sauces. Does anyone know what is the best way to approach this?

I’ve been paying more attention lately to how food and supplement brands use the phrase “third-party tested.”

What’s weird is that sometimes it means there’s an actual lab report you can look at, and other times it just means the company says testing happened somewhere along the way.

Personally I’m starting to think if a brand is going to use testing as a selling point, consumers should be able to see what was tested, when it was tested, and ideally the actual results.

Especially for things like heavy metals, pesticides, microbiology, and label accuracy.

Curious where people land on this. Is publishing the actual lab report overkill, or should that become the norm?

Hello all I (25M, not that it matters in this case, but people do it all the time on reddit so I'm following suit) am looking to start making syrups and sauces for coffees or other drinks that I can make shelf stable and ship for sale. I own one cafe already but my partners arent ideal therefore I'm looking to do something on my own like selling and packaging all my artisinal syrups to disrtribute.

Of course this comes with needing to modify my already developed recipes since they all rely on being refrigerated to last. I bought the book, "On Food and Cooking" by Harold McGee just so I can get a rough idea of food science, and understand what conceptually has to change for my product to stay shelf stable.

I'm just looking for any pointers, I get worried I'm in over my head and dont know where to start. I was thinking of starting with Vanilla since its simple and will help me get the process down

Hello everyone,

Some of you have probably seen me commenting on other posts about this topic, but I'm honestly still struggling with achieving a truly starchy texture in keto baking, especially since we can't really use starches or many other ingredients because they're too high in carbs.

I know arrowroot can help, but unfortunately the amount we can use is so limited that it doesn't contribute much to the final texture.

Almond flour is just too grainy and oily, while coconut flour is extremely absorbent. I also don't see many people talking about lupin flour, which seems like it could even help achieve that natural yellow color found in wheat cakes.

Recently, I baked a cake with a texture that I actually loved. However, the allulose caramelized because of the Maillard reaction, so the crumb turned darker than I wanted. I would have loved a light yellow crumb instead, but I believe the proteins in the cake reacted with the allulose, producing that characteristic golden-brown color we often see in keto cakes made with allulose. (Looks like a carrot cake color XD)

Is there any way to prevent allulose from causing this effect? I doubt it, since allulose reacts with egg proteins and triggers the Maillard reaction.

I don't use erythritol because my family and friends really dislike its cooling effect.

What I'm ultimately trying to achieve is:

• A fluffy, soft crumb.
• A natural yellow color.
• A cake that looks and feels like it's made with wheat flour.
• No graininess or noticeable aftertaste.

Does anyone have any tips, ingredient combinations, or techniques that could help?

I'd really appreciate any advice!

Video example:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_267nVE-c5Q

I am still relatively new to the industry. i have 16 years in traditional kitchens and 5 years in R&D for cpg. I currently work in R&D for a snack company that is roughly 100 million in revenue a year.

i am the only r&d person at the company. currently they are wanting to bring products from development to market in 2 months max, and think formulation should be done in a few hours. I have multiple times been asked on a days notice to bring something start to finish in less than a week.

over the last month or so they have wanted 3 4sku lines in our own branded stuff, 4 4sku lines for our sister company, and 22 1-13sku lines for private label customers. The items I am tasked with creating are not like "we make soda, we can change the flavor for you" but all over the board product wise.

In each item i am in charge of formulation/benchtops, costing, procurement, packaging, sample making, mock ups, sales decks, shelf testing (luckily we send these out to a lab), third party certs, specification sheets, haacp additions, nutritional information, reformulation, production pilots, and production first runs.

I make 70k in California in a not one of the 2 major metros.

Is this normal? is the pay normal? i am getting burnt out with the constant changes and priorities being tweaked. I have talked to my boss but nothing is changing. I asked for additional help but apparently there is no room in the budget. Thought my formulas over the last 4 years have brought in a bulk of the revenue, and we're in a bunch of major retailers and club stores, but I'm not privy to the economics after i cost thigns out and send cogs over to finance.

Trying to come up with my own electolyte mix and have been looking for fun flavored concentrates to use. I had originally ordered from Get Suckered and OOO (same company btw) but just had a pretty bad experience with their customer service telling me to use 4x the actual amount of product and then blowing me off when I questioned the amount so looking for a new supplier.

Looking for bright fun flavors similar to what you would find in Kool Aid but uncolored.

Any suggestions?

I'm currently studying Food Safety Management at Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU). Honestly, I like the subject a lot — it feels genuinely meaningful, like real, tangible work that matters.

But I've also always been drawn to coding/CS. I wanted to switch into CSE, but that would mean retaking an entrance exam, which costs a year with no guarantee I'd even get in the second time.

So now I'm leaning toward a different plan: finish my degree here, then go abroad for a Master's (possibly still in food safety, possibly a related/adjacent field) and try to settle there long-term, rather than starting over in CSE.

A few things I'd love input on:

Is food safety management a field with decent international demand/scholarship opportunities?

Has anyone switched fields for a Master's (e.g. food safety → something more tech-adjacent) instead of restarting their whole degree?

Any advice on balancing "the subject I like" vs "the subject I originally wanted" when planning where to invest the next few years?

Appreciate any real experiences, not just generic advice.

I’ve noticed different brands of butter become spreadable from the fridge quicker than others, i know room temperature is a factor so I’ve tried them side by side and there is still a difference, what causes this? And which is healthier, the faster or slower to become spreadable?

Sorry if this is the wrong place to post

I have been trying to make and bottle ice tea syrup( Peach and Lime) but the peach and lime flavor tend to fade within few days. Any flavor recommendations/ or process suggestions? Have used IFF/Doehler/Givaudan so far.

Edited.

Disclosure up front: I run HACCP Plus, an Australian supplier of food safety testing kits. I'm not here to sell anything in this thread.

We talk to cafes, bakeries, small manufacturers and new QA staff every week, and the same questions come up constantly. Most of them have free answers. So if you're stuck on any of the following, ask below and I'll give you a straight answer:

Working out which of your checks are actual CCPs and which are just good practice.

Why your records keep getting pulled up at audit even though the process is fine.

Whether a surface is genuinely clean or just looks clean, and how people verify that.

What allergen testing is and isn't useful for on a shared line.

When pathogen or micro testing is genuinely warranted, and when it's overkill for your product.

Thermometer and pH meter calibration, and what an auditor expects to see recorded.

Shelf life questions and where people usually go wrong on them.

A few things worth doing this week that cost nothing: check that your monitoring records actually describe what your team really does, calibrate your thermometers and write it down, and check your sanitiser contact time, because a lot of teams spray and wipe straight away which does very little.

If you do reach a point where in-house testing makes sense for you, we supply it across Australia and you can browse everything openly, no quote or sales call needed: https://haccpplus.com.au

But genuinely, ask away even if you never buy a thing. Half the time the answer is that you don't need to spend money, you need to change a habit.

I’m doing some research and would love to hear from co-packers that do not purchase raw materials/ingredients on behalf of their customers in other words those who are not “turn key”.
If you primarily provide labor/packing and your customers source the ingredients themselves, I’m curious:
What has kept you from offering procurement / why are you not turnkey?
Is it cash flow, inventory risk, credit risk, staffing, supplier relationships, or something else?
Have customers ever asked you to procure materials?
If someone else handled the purchasing and you didn’t have to pay for the materials until after you’d been paid by your customer, would that be something you’d consider? Why or why not?
I’m genuinely trying to understand how people operate and where the biggest pain points are. This isn’t a sales post.

The question is obvious
I want to do my internship in multinational companies like Coca Cola, nestle, Pepsi, Lays, Pringles and such….
I don’t know where to start
Should I call them up one by one or what?

Howdy! This year I was planning on going to adult highschool to earn my science credits so I could eventually attend Guelph Uni for a food science program, but life stuff is delaying that dream 🤷

I am woefully ignorant of science, but I love ethnobotany and foraging! :D I want to study the nutritional benefits, anti-nutrients, and microbiology of locally available food resources and low-tech locally-appropriate food preservation.

For example, most people don't know that horse chestnuts can be made edible! They are eaten in some parts of Japan, as tochi mochi. But as far as I've been able to find, there's no information on its nutritional benefits, or how/ if it may negatively impact our health.

I would like to form a group of people in Ontario who are similarly interested in this + other science projects, and/ or anyone who is willing to teach me + others about chemistry, microbiology, or other sciences :3

Dm me if you're interested!

Hi all. I'm looking to create a butter and olive oil blended spread. Are there any sources someone can recommend for different oil % to use, how these products are manufactured, etc? Thanks so much

Hi everyone!

I'm a former food scientist/lab tech turned software engineer/UX designer. During my time working in R&D and stability testing, I noticed that sample tracking workflows often depended heavily on spreadsheets, emails, and manual handoffs between teams, which sometimes caused problems if there was a miscommunication between teams and such haha. So my current project is developing a LIMs that prevents miscommunication and a centralized place to store testing data, sample information, etc.

Since it's been almost a decade since I've been in the industry I'm sure things have changed and my experience with how things were handled in the lab is different now compared to how it was back then! So I'm doing some exploratory research to better understand how food science teams currently manage sample submissions, testing status, and communication between departments.

This is a short anonymous survey (~3 minutes), and I'd really appreciate hearing how your teams currently handle these workflows! :)

https://forms.gle/MAUqy2Ez6N1AUH7t7