Where Curiosity Meets Food Science
Could monk fruit replace sugar or corn syrup in ketchup?
Which base allows the most vibrancy to emerge in a sauce?
What if we helped gluten intolerant people by making flourless bread using eggs as the main ingredient?
When it comes to food product innovation, one can never ask too many questions. Curiosity is a core value at CuliNEX. Working with simple, sustainable, nutritional ingredients can be found in everything we do and to make that happen requires curiosity, invention, and outside the box thinking.
A Wide-Ranging, Curious Team
Our team brings together expertise in consumer insights, culinary inspirations, commercialization processes, and food science applications. "We're a group of food innovation and product development experts,” said Kathy Stephenson, Senior Director of Operations, "We work from white space--that fuzzy front-end of food innovation--through product development, then scale up to commercialization.”
Our curiosity and innovation can be found in every phase of the food production cycle. “Our concern about the environment has led to innovations in packaging, innovations in logistics, innovations in processing techniques and even innovation in techniques," said Stephenson.
“Our process is the union of science and food,” said Patrick Rolfe, Research Chef II. “That gives us a much greater depth of understanding of the processes and methodologies of food production.” With both scientists and chefs on the program, “there's really nothing that we can't figure out a way to create.”
Transforming Trends into Products
Our team’s curiosity leads to constant discovery of new trends. Every year, we create a Trendscape Report and Webinar for our clients to help them stay abreast of the developments we’re seeing in the food industry. This year we’re seeing trends in eco-friendly ingredients, plant-based proteins, authentic worldwide flavors, and ingredient heroes that serve specific nutritional purposes and practical applications like improving shelf-life. If you’re interested in learning more about these trends, please reach out and ask for our Trendscape resources.
Curiosity At Work
In the CuliNEX workspace, there’s a feeling of discovery. Enter the workroom, and you’ll observe some people weighing ingredients, and some people calibrating equipment, some people on the stoves. They may each be doing something different, but everyone is curious and cooperative.
The inquisitive spirit is infectious, Rolfe explains. “Someone might ask across the bench, ‘Hey, I can't seem to get this nutrition spec to line up. Anybody have any suggestions?’” said Rolfe. “Soon, someone might say, ‘Oh yeah, check this or that.’ A minute later, they get the information they need. And we all move forward.”
Curiosity means that the work done at CuliNEX is as varied and vibrant. At any given time, a range of food products are being reformulated or reimagined. Possibilities abound as the staff experiments with insights, inspirations, and inquiries.
Creativity In Food Product Development
“This morning, I made a big batch of monk fruit ketchup,” said Rolfe, explaining that the team used monk fruit powder as a sweetener, and instead of sugar. “The experimental ketchup was created using 11 ingredients, every one of them you probably have in your kitchen—except the monk fruit,” said Rolfe. If you’re wondering about the results, by all reports the experiment was a sweet success. “It was amazed,” said Rolfe, “It tasted fantastic.”
With innovative ideas, even those that sound unexpected, get explored. “We’ve been looking at making high protein puddings. We’ve been working on a new cream cheese product to try and improve the flavor profiles,” said Rolfe. “Everyone's really busy here.”
An inquisitive staff is a busy one—and one that consistently delivers on their promises to clients of formulating delicious new foods that are ready for co-manufacturing, strike a chord in the marketplace, and win over the hearts of consumers.
