Dear Cal Poly Undergraduates
I hope your first quarter is going well.
I hope that you’re not scared of your professors like I was in 2010.
Maybe you have an idea on what food science actually is by now.
If you have absolutely no idea what you can do with a degree in Food Science, then maybe we can help.
My Food Job Rocks! is a new initiative founded by Cal Poly alumni to showcase your future and maybe how to get to your dream job in the food industry. We’re pretty new at this, not even a year old, but we’ve been getting praises from all over the world on how we’re educating the masses!
My name’s Adam Yee, I host this podcast where I interview professionals in the food industry so you can find out what the heck we do. I have to tell you, our jobs are pretty fun. You can download the podcast on Itunes or Stitcher, and listen to them while waiting for the bus, at the gym, or in class.
When starting this podcast, I reached out to the people I knew best, the friends I made in college. We’ve done some awesome stuff throughout the years, and working hard, it became really rewarding. Most of us got jobs in awesome industries like bean-to-bar chocolate and making cookies all day. Can you believe it?
Here are some episodes where I talk to some Cal Poly Alumni. There’s a bar where you can play the podcast right on the spot, and then you can just click the picture to take you to the show notes.
Trevor Fast – Chocolate Supervisor at Dandelion Chocolates
Trevor works at the recently popular Bean-To-Bar company, Dandelion Chocolates in San Francisco. He devoted his college career to making chocolate by participating in Cal Poly’s chocolate program. He’s now helping Dandelion take off…in JAPAN!
Taryn Yee – Food Technologist at Safeway/ Albertsons
Taryn eats ice cream all day at work as a food technologist at Safeway. She has to, it’s her job to make sure that the ice cream is in spec.
Kyle Failla – Sales Manager at Glanbia
Kyle’s an awesome dude, and his about story getting into food science is very unique, especially since he started in nutrition. He’s now a sales manager at a very large food company.
Andrea Zeng – Food Technologist and Lundberg Family Farms
Andrea’s love of cooking and interest in science landed her a job at Lundberg Family Farms. If you go on their site, most of the food decorating and recipes are done by her.
Adam Yee – Product Developer at Isagenix
In my spare time I’m a food scientist.
Dr. Tom Neuhaus – Owner of Mama Ganache Chocolates
Did you know, if you go to downtown SLO, there’s a small store, Mama Ganache Chocolates, where they sell Fair Trade Chocolate? Owner Tom Neuhaus, now retired from Cal Poly, was one of my professors. Dr. Neuhaus also donates his time and energy in Africa to help cocoa farmers through direct assistance-ship and education.
Katie Lanfranki – Food Technologist at South Coast Baking Co
Katie’s experience in IFTSA’s board gave her the experience needed to join South Coast Baking, where she literally makes cookies all day. What a life.
Stephanie Ronquillio – Food Scientist at Newly Weds Foods
Being a year older, Stephanie gave me a lot of valuable advice in college and she will do the same in this interview.
Jessica Gavin – Sr. Research Scientist at Nutrilite
Jessica is actually Taryn’s cousin and also went to Cal Poly. She has about 9 years of experience as a product developer and has her own professional food blog.
Tiffany Lau – Food Safety Auditor for the NSF
Though most of our guests are product developers, Tiffany Lau chose to go the food safety route.
Fiona Salim – Graduate Student at the Wahennigen University in the Netherlands
I knew Fiona Salim from college, but she didn’t graduate with a degree in Food Science. Instead, she worked for Dreyer’s Ice Creama nd then went to the Netherlands for Food Science
Bonus – Making College Worth it
Some times I like to talk in the microphone for 20 minutes. This time, it’s about how to make the most out of your college
experience.
Again, if you like any of these episodes, I suggest you download them on either iTunes or Stitcher