🛒 Source ingredients for better margins & safety🛒
🛒 Validate your products with sensory science 🛒
🛒 Engineer packaging for integrity and scale 🛒
🛒 Protect your product with food safety systems 🛒
🛒 Master shelf-stable liquid production 🛒
Cost: $95
Next Session: May 15 – June 12
Ingredient Technology: Foundations of Scalable Food Businesses | $95
REGISTER NOWWhat can I expect from GROW: Ingredient Technology
- This technical commercialization roadmap will help you align food science, engineering, and supply chain decision-making with the operational, financial, and risk-management requirements of scalable growth.
- You’ll receive expert-led instruction, tools, and group coaching.
- The series consists of 5 live, virtual group sessions in a concise, time-saving format.
- Through group instruction and consulting, this series taps into the expertise of leaders in ingredient sourcing & procurement, sensory & consumer science, packaging, food safety, and integrated processing to put you on a successful product strategy roadmap for your food or beverage business.
This is right for you if …
Your sourcing strategy makes it hard to make profit, ensure supply continuity, and/or grow the business
Your worried that your ways of validating product quality are subjective, inconsistent, or inefficient
Your packaging systems don’t always protect product integrity, support manufacturing efficiency, or meet sustainability goals
Food safety worries are keeping you up at night
You don’t have in-house expertise on maintaining product integrity through demanding thermal cycles
Participants Say …
“Thanks to FFI’s training sessions, we’ve been able to build new tools that improve our current processes and help us reach more customers in the future.”
— Francisco Guerrero, Redwood St Roasters
Included in the Training:
- 5 live virtual workshop sessions (1.5 hrs. each)
- Presentation and Q&A with food business experts
- Tools and resources to start using immediately
Session Topics and Experts
Lauren George
Select Distributions
SESSION 1
May 15, 2026, 9-10:30 AM CST
Strategic Sourcing: Navigating Ingredient and Packaging Supply Chains
A great formulation and a brilliant package design are only as strong as the supply chain that supports them. For food brands looking to scale, sourcing is a strategic function that dictates your margins, your food safety, and your ability to remain on-shelf during global disruptions.
In this session, procurement expert Lauren George breaks down the complexities of sourcing both ingredients and packaging materials. Moving beyond simple unit-cost metrics, Lauren explores how to build a professionalized procurement strategy that balances quality, reliability, and lead times. This session is essential for moving from “buying” to “strategic category management.”
You Will Learn:
- Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): Look beyond the invoice price to understand the true cost of an item—including logistics, MOQs (Minimum Order Quantities), storage, and the financial impact of long lead times.
- Dual-Track Sourcing: Strategies for managing two distinct supply chains—the raw agricultural/chemical inputs for your food and the industrial materials (films, glass, corrugate) for your packaging.
- Supplier Relationship Management (SRM): How to identify, vet, and partner with the right vendors—from boutique ingredient specialists to large-scale packaging converters.
- Mitigating Supply Risk: Identifying “single-source” vulnerabilities and building a diversified supplier base to protect against crop failures or packaging material shortages.
- Contracting and Negotiation: Professionalizing your purchasing with clear specifications, volume commitments, and terms that protect your cash flow.
- Sustainability & Compliance: Navigating the technical and ethical requirements of modern sourcing, including traceability, certifications, and recyclable material availability.
Ivy Koelliker
Koelliker Consulting
SESSION 2
May 22, 2026, 9-10:30 AM CST
Sensory Science: Data-Driven Product Validation
In the food industry, “tasting good” is subjective—but Sensory Science is objective. To build a repeatable, scalable brand, you cannot rely on the founder’s palate alone. You need a rigorous framework to ensure that every batch meets consumer expectations and that every formulation change is invisible to the loyal customer.
In this session, Ivy Koelliker introduces the methodology of sensory evaluation used by the world’s leading food companies. From difference testing to descriptive analysis, Ivy explains how to turn human perception into actionable data. This session is critical for any brand looking to maintain consistency during scale-up, ingredient substitutions, or shelf-life extensions.
You Will Learn:
- The Sensory Toolkit: An introduction to discrimination testing (e.g., Triangle Tests) to determine if a change in process or supplier is actually detectable.
- Objective vs. Subjective: How to move beyond “I like this” to descriptive profiles that define the specific attributes (texture, aroma, mouthfeel) of your brand.
- Shelf-Life & Stability: Using sensory data to determine “end of life” and ensure your product tastes as good on day 180 as it did on day one.
- Consumer-Centric Design: Mapping sensory attributes to consumer preferences to ensure your product development is hitting the “Gold Standard” for your target market.
- Quality Control at Scale: Implementing simple, effective sensory “cues” for your production team to ensure batch-to-batch consistency.
Shawn Banaszak
American Packaging Corp.
SESSION 3
May 29, 2026, 9-10:30 AM CST
Packaging Systems: Engineering for Integrity and Scale
Packaging is often the most overlooked component of a food business until it fails. Whether it’s a seal that won’t hold, a material that doesn’t provide enough moisture barrier, or a format that won’t run on an automated line—packaging issues are among the most expensive “hidden” costs in food manufacturing.
In this session, Shawn Banaszak brings his deep technical expertise to help you move beyond aesthetic design into functional packaging systems. This is a masterclass in selecting the right materials and formats to ensure your product survives the rigors of the modern supply chain while maintaining the margins and sustainability profiles required for a healthy business.
You Will Learn:
- Material Science & Barrier Performance: Understanding the technical requirements for moisture, oxygen, and light barriers to maximize shelf-life and food quality.
- Design for Manufacturing: How to develop packaging structures that are compatible with high-speed automated equipment and co-packer capabilities to minimize labor costs.
- The Sustainability Roadmap: Navigating the transition to recyclable or compostable materials without sacrificing functional performance or food safety.
- E-Commerce & Distribution Resilience: Engineering primary and secondary packaging to survive the “torture test” of small-parcel shipping and palletized distribution.
- Technical Specifications: How to write and manage robust packaging specs to ensure consistency from your suppliers and converters.
Douglas Marshall, Ph.D.
Eurofins Microbiology Laboratories
SESSION 4
June 5, 2026, 9-10:30 AM CST
Food Safety Systems: Protecting Your Product and Your Business
A single safety failure can end a food brand before it truly begins. In an era of heightened regulatory scrutiny and complex global supply chains, “hoping for the best” is not a strategy. To be investor-ready and commercially viable, a food business must be built on a rigorous, data-driven food safety culture.
This session features Douglas Marshall, Ph.D. a world-renowned expert in food microbiology and safety. Dr. Marshall moves beyond basic compliance to discuss the science of prevention. He provides a roadmap for building robust safety systems that protect public health while simultaneously safeguarding your brand’s financial future.
You Will Learn:
- Microbiological Mastery: Understanding the primary pathogens that threaten different food categories and the specific interventions required to neutralize them.
- Environmental Monitoring Programs (EMP): How to move beyond testing the finished product to monitoring the manufacturing environment—finding and fixing problems before they reach the package.
- FSMA and Regulatory Navigation: Decoding the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) requirements for growing brands, including PCQI roles and preventive controls.
- Root Cause Analysis: Learn the scientific discipline of investigating failures to ensure they never happen twice.
- Validation vs. Verification: The technical difference between proving a process can work and proving it did work for every batch.
Charles Buckley
Tetra Pak
SESSION 5
June 12, 2026, 9-10:30 AM CST
Integrated Processing: Mastering Shelf-Stable Liquid Production
Moving a liquid product to a shelf-stable format is one of the most significant technical hurdles a food brand can face. It requires a seamless marriage between the chemistry of the food and the mechanical engineering of the processing line. If these two systems aren’t perfectly synchronized, you risk compromised food safety, degraded nutritional value, or expensive production downtime.
In this session, Charles Buckley leverages his deep expertise at Tetra Pak to demystify the world of continuous liquid processing. He provides a roadmap for designing systems that protect product integrity through the most demanding thermal cycles, ensuring that your beverage or liquid food is market-ready and commercially viable.
You Will Learn:
- Processing Technology Selection: Understanding the technical trade-offs between Pasteurization, ESL (Extended Shelf Life), and Aseptic processing for different product profiles.
- Thermal Precision: The science of heat exchange—how to achieve a validated “kill step” while minimizing thermal stress on the flavor and color of your formula.
- Aseptic Integrity: An overview of the specialized equipment and environmental controls required to package products without preservatives or refrigeration.
- Scaling Fluid Operations: How to transition from batch-based production to high-efficiency continuous flow systems without losing quality control.
- Sustainable Operations: Identifying opportunities to reduce water and energy consumption within the thermal processing loop to improve long-term margins.
Scholarship opportunities are available, learn more.