Hello Adam,
I have been given the task to find and interview someone with a job in the field of food science and after seeing/hearing you in your videos on My Food Job Rocks! I determined that I would ask you for help with this assignment. If possible, I would love to hear your feedback on certain questions about food science and your specific relationship with the field. Thanks for your time and consideration and I hope to hear from you soon.
Sincerely,
Chris Tao
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Adam
Sure, I’m happy to help
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This is the Q and A portion of the article
Awesome! I’ll just get right into it then.
As a brief summary of myself so you can kind of see who is interviewing you; I am a 4th year transfer student who has found a passion in food science. I enjoy lifting weights, video games, and eating tons of food. What I want to get out of this assignment is to better understand the field I am going into and how to properly prepare in order to be successful and happy in it. If you dislike or are uncomfortable answering any questions, let me know and I will happily change it. Thanks again for your time.
- What specifically about food science did you like when you found out it was something you wanted to pursue? (R&D, the work environment, etc etc)
For me, being in R+D and product development was like being a chef with less work. I loved snacks like chips and Lunchables, and stuff like that so I wanted to create stuff like that. I first learned about product development in my Food Science 101 class and got obsessed with it. I did product development competitions in college and had a blast building products with no experience and beating out Ivy League schools.
My first job was R+D in a plant setting. I think if the job description matched the work I actually did, I’d enjoy it, but I was more of a production supervisor. It was fun, learned a ton, but I burnt out. I then got into a comfortable R+D job at Isagenix, where you sit in a lab, argue with marketing, and make cool products.
Overall, my viewpoint on R+D changed a lot. At first, I just thought it was the funnest part of food science, which is still true. However, the impact you can potentially have will beat out 99% of chefs. You can create products that might possibly change people’s lives, or make people happy, or perhaps even save lives, to the scale of millions. And that’s what wakes me up in the morning now.
- I believe you’re working at Isagenix at the moment (correct me if I’m wrong). Do you see yourself working there long term or is there somewhere else you see yourself in say 5 years from now?
I switched companies recently.
I wrote a few articles about it:
Why I Left the Best Job in The World
So I don’t believe in long-term for a job, but honestly, that’s not my style. If it’s your style, great! But for me, it’s always the end goal, starting my own company, which I did achieve after Isagenix. You can read more about it here.
It was thanks to the persistence of the podcast that I was able to make my own company.
I’ve had 2 jobs before my current one in my 4 years of industry and I thought I was going to stay there for a long time. I’ve had multiple people ask me if it’s ok to leave after 1 or 2 years. There are two camps in this. If you are an A player who works really hard all the time, you probably won’t last 2 years. People will want you. If you just want an easy life, then yea, go ahead and stay as long as the job makes you happy. Isagenix was a great job, I would have loved to stay there. But the potential for Better Meat’s impact is what made me switch.
In this case, it’s nice to stay for 5 years, but the world is changing really fast. I used to ask this question: where do you see yourself in 5 years?” in the past but scrapped it because people actually have no idea.
The best advice I can give is to learn on your own and make yourself valuable in the market. What skills can you learn that are transferable? that give you the edge on the competition when you do have to leave in less than 5 years? The knowledge that you know, will it even matter in 5 years?
- If you could do anything else in the food industry aside from R&D what would it be?
Supply Chain management is never actually talked about in school. I have a few episodes about it on the podcast, but it’s really complicated and it makes me respect just how hard it is to get food on the table. Plus, you get to travel a lot, which is really fun. Yea, probably Supply Chain or Procurement because you get to interact and negotiate, which I found to be fun.
- When listening to your podcasts, I knew I wanted to interview you because for some reason I felt like I could relate to you well. Would you say finding people who you enjoy working with is difficult in the food science industry, or does everyone kind of share the same mentality?
Thanks.
The biggest thing I’ve noticed is this: It’s not the industry it’s the people. There are passionate, curious people in all industries, and there is the scum of the earth bottom feeders in all industries. At My Food Job Rocks, we only interview the passionate people and it shows. If they can go through an intense interview process for an hour long, this means something to them.
Food is a bit different because everyone eats, so the passionate people are really passionate. Food is culturally impactful for everyone, I don’t think anyone can deny this. Working into it and loving it is very important and I think that’s the secret in working with food.
There are plenty of jobs that pay more, sound nicer, and all that, but food feeds the soul.
- What makes you happy every day when you come into work?
I’ll give you multiple reasons:
- I get to interact with people to make ideas come to life
- I get to communicate with people who have tasted my product and enjoy it
- I get to work on my craft, and meticulously create the best products possible, and challenge convention by unleashing them
- Free food
There is nothing more satisfying than someone talking about how good your product is, whether in person, on Instagram, or on the website.
As an artist, that’s the best thing in the world.
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Chris:
First off, I would like to take this time to say that I am very happy that I asked for your email. Without trying to sound like some crazed fan or some overly eager student, I would like to tell you that your pro-activity and genuine love for your craft speaks a lot to many people including myself.
Your crave for your own company and the ability to follow through is some awe-inspiring stuff and I not only hope for your success but hope there might be a spot open in the future for someone like me to learn how you did it whether that be through an internship there or a full time job. With that being said, I found your answers to my questions not only satiable but also gives me guidance on my next steps in my career.
For that I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I know more than a handful of students in my class who are messaging other food scientists who aren’t nearly as thorough or passionate as you. Thank you thank you! Sorry if I’m sounding a little cheesy but having someone who lays out their entire timeline all while sounding a little more human than your “Lance Armstrongs” of today’s society is a little more comforting. So before I take up any more of your time, here are some take-aways for you so that you don’t feel like you spent all that time being helpful for nothing:
All my life I have been surrounded by people who want to be doctors, engineers, architectures, and other “prestigious” titles that usually illicit some form of praise from family and friends. I myself fell into this wanting to be an engineer. I took classes all the way up to my third year in college trying to swap into the computer engineering department. Needless to say, I didn’t do too well. I found myself hating every second of every day in those courses. After trying out some food sciences classes that piqued my interest, I decided to give food science a try. It wasn’t until I listened to your podcasts and read your stories on how you progressed through the industry that I made up my mind. I want to be a food scientist. I also would love to start my own company or at least play a big part in one in the future. I tell you this because I want you to know that your words have reinforced this idea of being proactive in me.
If I truly want this, I need to be willing to put some time and passion into it. I need to have experience, whether that be in school or work experience, that equips me with things that will put me above the rest come hiring time. I need to create in order to reap the rewards of the creations. I will try and make something of myself so that maybe one day we can collaborate on something because that sounds absolutely fantastic to me. These are what I have taken away from your responses and I hope you realized you have already made a difference in people’s lives. Whether that be through Better Meat Co. Isagenix, or your podcasts. Here’s just one of those lives thanking you for it.
Thanks again for everything Adam,
Sincerely
Chris Tao
P.S I am going to try and do some IFTSA stuff, fingers crossed
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Adam
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the kind words.
I’m glad I can be part of your journey.
Just one question, would you be fine if I repurpose and repost this on the My Food Job Rocks blog? I think it’s important for people who visit the site to look into this perspective. It’ll help a lot of people.
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Chris
Hello Adam,
Yeah of course! I’m glad I was able to give you something in return for your advice.
