Kelsey Tenney transcript
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Hi, everyone. You're listening to The Future Of Food Is You, a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. I'm your host, Abena Anim-Somuah, and each week, I talk to emerging talents in the food world and they share what they're up to as well as their dreams and predictions for what's ahead. As for me, I'm the founder of The Eden Place, a community that's all about gathering people intentionally around food. I love this new generation of chefs, bakers, and creatives making their way in the worlds of food, drink, media, and tech.
Today's guest is food scientist Kelsey Tenney. She's the co-founder and vice president of research and development at Voyage Foods. Voyage Foods is on a mission to future-proof our pantry essentials by offering sustainable alternatives that are delicious and good for the planet. Kelsey and her team offer products like their peanut-free peanut butter, hazelnut free hazelnut spreads, and cocoa free chocolate, just to name a few. Kelsey and I chat about how her passion for food led her to science, how she brings products to life that align with Voyage Food's mission, and how scientists can be better embraced by the food world.
Thank you to Kerrygold for supporting today's show. Kerrygold is delicious all natural butter and cheese, made with milk from Irish grass-fed cows raised on small family-run Irish dairy farms. Kerrygold farming families pass their craft and knowledge from generation to generation. This traditional approach is the reason for the rich taste of Kerrygold. You can enjoy delicious sliced or shredded Kerrygold cheddar cheese available in mild or savory flavors. The shredded cheddar is perfect for those who love making mac and cheese. And now the grilling season is here, the cheddar slices will take any burger or veggie burger up a notch. There's also Kerrygold's classic salted butter in the gold foil. It's perfect for slathering on corn on the cob, always a summer fave. And the unsalted butter in the silver foil is an absolute must if you're turning sweet summer strawberries into straw shortcake. Visit kerrygoldusa.com to find the Kerrygold retailer nearest you and lots of great recipes.
Let's check in with today's guest. Kelsey, thanks so much for joining us on The Future Of Food Is You podcast.
Kelsey Tenney:
Thank you for having me. I'm excited.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Can you tell us a little bit about where you grew up and how did food show up in your life?
Kelsey Tenney:
I grew up in Rochester, Minnesota, which is in the southeast corner. I had a very traditional middle America experience with food. Ate a lot of McDonald's, hamburger helper, tuna helper, things like that. Grew up loving Sandra Lee who did the semi homemade thing because that was definitely something that was very much a part of how we prepared dinner and things like that. So I grew up with an appreciation for the grocery store I would say.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Obviously since you're from Minnesota, I have to talk about your state's cultural export, the Minnesota State Fair.
Kelsey Tenney:
Yeah. Yeah.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Was that also a part of your childhood? Did you have any favorite food stalls growing up while you were there?
Kelsey Tenney:
Fun fact, not a lot of people know this, but I was a singer when I was younger. And so I used to compete at the state fair, so we'd go every year. I definitely love hush puppies, that's a classic, but then they also have these giant buckets of tiny chocolate chip cookies that would-
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah. Sweet Martha's.
Kelsey Tenney:
Yeah. I would eat the entire thing.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Obviously growing up, it seemed like you had more of a grocery store, food upworking as you like to dub it. How did you start thinking about the ways that you wanted food to show up as a career for you?
Kelsey Tenney:
Yeah. So in sophomore year of high school when you're supposed to start thinking about what you're doing, I had no idea, knew I loved to bake and thought about going to culinary school to become a pastry chef. That did not go over so well with my parents as people who definitely worked so that I could have a better life than potentially, I still love pastry chefs, think they have a great life, but essentially you have options not to work on weekends, less on your feet, you have holidays off kind of thing. And so I brainstormed with my mom on different career paths that I could take other than pastry school. And she is a big proponent of keeping women in science and math. And I was very proficient at science and math at the time, and so we found the career of food science and it seemed to be the best thing that I could ever imagine for a career.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
What were some of the experiences when you started to see the work that food scientists were doing? Did you get to do any shadowing opportunities? Do you just Google food scientists on the internet? What did that look like?
Kelsey Tenney:
Started with Googling. I saw a video that Cargill had put out. And most people don't know what Cargill is, but they're one of the largest food companies in the world. And their headquarters is in Minneapolis, Minnesota. So we job shadowed for a day. I got to speak with a bunch of food scientists and it was just incredible. You're seeing people making muffins with Omega-3 oils, trying to figure out how to make a healthier baked product. Or they have engineers looking at how can we change the crystal structure of salt so that it hits stronger and faster on your tongue so you can reduce the amount of sodium in products. It was a really cool experience, and it sold me immediately. I think I'm one of the only people who was passionate about what they wanted to do at the age of 15.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah. That's awesome. And so you end up going to Purdue. What was it like studying food science in college?
Kelsey Tenney:
Yeah. Food science is generally a curriculum built of core sciences with a bit of application as you progress in your education. So started with a lot of bio classes, chem classes and some physics classes. And then those translate into microbiology, food microbiology, food processing, food chemistry, things like that as you go. And so the second half of my studies were absolutely amazing. It was cool to really apply what we were seeing and be able to do labs and things like that. So it was a really cool program.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
What did community or mentorship look like with your professors? Obviously, you can do so many things with food science.
Kelsey Tenney:
It's interesting. A lot of the communication in food science departments, you get a lot of funding from larger food companies, and so you go through your program expecting to work at some of those larger CPG companies. I actually had my professor in undergrad who's my advisor, and then I also worked in her lab was Dr. Lisa Mauer. Fun fact, I actually put her forward for a Cherry Bombe article. She's in I think issue three she was featured, which is really, really cool.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Oh, very cool.
Kelsey Tenney:
Yeah. And so she's one of the strongest female scientists that I ever worked with. And she was very academic. I never really wanted to stay in academia. But it was a good experience talking things through with her at that time as well, just understanding how to think about science, scientific thought, mentorship, things like that.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
That's awesome. How are you able to maintain a joy or nostalgia of baking and stuff like that while still getting to understand food at such an intricate level, probably at a level that very few people will get to understand?
Kelsey Tenney:
Yeah. So there's actually two parts to this. In undergrad, I worked at a bakery in Lafayette, Indiana and that was a really nice experience. Gets you off campus, gets you thinking more about if you're making eight batches of 400 pound cupcakes or something, how is that going to change the recipe? It was a very cool hands-on experience. And then later on when I went to grad school, something that was really helpful was that I created a food blog focused on finding the scientific beauty in various recipes for at-home baking and that really helped me stay out of, this is happening in a vacuum. Food science happens around us all the time. We interact with it every single day. So why not talk about it and get other people excited about it as well?
Abena Anim-Somuah:
You decide to work for a few years before going to grad school. What was one of the first jobs that you had when you got out of Purdue?
Kelsey Tenney:
Yeah. So I actually never worked full time after undergrad, before grad, but I interned at a couple places. And I had interned at a couple of really large food companies. The first was Kerry Ingredients, which is similar to Cargill. You've never heard of it, but they source millions and millions of ingredients to the largest food companies in the world. And then the second one was ConAgra Foods. And they are one of the most ubiquitous CPG companies. They have things like Chef Boyardee, Peter Pan Peanut Butter, Healthy Choice Frozen Meals, things like that. And I think I learned the most at ConAgra Foods in a way that helped me decide what I wanted to do with my life. I think as I experienced more and more at ConAgra Foods, I just found that I wasn't becoming the scientist I wanted to become. And I noticed that the people around me didn't care as much as I thought that they should.
So for example, I was always really good at taking tests and memorizing things and being really proficient at grades, and I found that the people around me also did not the bare minimum but less than maybe they could to make the absolute best product. They just wanted to check the boxes off. And I really wanted to do more and be better for myself. And so I went to grad school to really learn about critical thinking and have more independent thought in what I was doing and what I really thought about scientific reactions, things like that.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
I feel like most people go to grad school and they don't know what they want to do, but it seemed like you want to double down on what you wanted to do. Were there any memorable experience that helped you get a better understanding of your work, and then also your work as it exists in food as a whole?
Kelsey Tenney:
I think in general, my research experience was really difficult at first, but then became something that I love and now rose colored glasses, I was like, it was amazing. But there was one talk that really stood out to me a lot. We had a food processing class or food engineering class. There was a professor who does a lot of patent work at the university and he gave an example. It really stuck with me and it's something that I still use today as a metaphor. So he essentially was like, you don't have to think about your product or what you're working on in a vacuum. You can look outside of the product and find inspiration in parallel things. So for example, chocolate is basically a suspension of solids in a medium, so it's like stuff inside of other stuff.
And how does concrete, for example, how is that similar? Is there some technology in concrete manufacturing that we can learn from to apply to chocolate manufacturing? I feel like a lot of people don't know this, but chocolate manufacturing equipment is basically the same as it was a hundred years ago. And so it was really interesting perspective on things that I had never heard before because it was very much, slow down, think more about the system and the principles of what's going on, and then you're able to see parallels much more clearly in other realms, not even in the food industry but in other technologies.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back.
Kerry Diamond:
Hi everybody, I'm Kerry Diamond, the founder of Cherry Bombe and the editor-in-chief of Cherry Bombe Magazine. The Cherry Bombe online shop is temporarily closed because we're switching warehouses. If you are looking for the newest issue of Cherry Bombe, be sure to visit one of our amazing stockists. Cherry Bombe is carried by great bookstores, cafes, magazine shops, and culinary boutiques across the country and abroad. Places like Stella's Fine Market in Beacon, New York, Matriarch in Newport, Rhode Island, and Good Egg in Toronto. Visit cherrybombe.com for stockists near you.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Team Cherry Bombe is headed to Philadelphia. We're doing a live Future Of Food Is You event on Thursday, September 7th, and I'll be moderating a panel of local food folks. We'll be at the New High Street event space and there'll be great food, drinks and networking. For tickets or more information, check out cherrybombe.com. Thank you to Kerrygold for supporting this event and I hope to see you there.
Let's get into your work at Voyage Foods where you currently are as the vice president of research and development. Can you tell us about the company and the work that you're doing there?
Kelsey Tenney:
Yeah. So Voyage Foods is a food tech company. We're about two and a half years old now. We're based in Oakland, California. We have our lab, we also have a manufacturing facility there, and our offices. Voyage, its mission is to reimagine food that's constrained in consumption, production or cultivation. And often we're looking at factors like human health concerns. And then we also look at changing environmental conditions due to climate change. And how we do this is we utilize natural ingredients and transform them into food products that smell, taste and feel exactly like the original. And thus we're decoupling them from some of those issues that you see in the original products. So we have our first four products, peanut free peanut butter, cocoa free chocolate, bean free coffee, and our newest product, a hazelnut free spread, which is also vegan and cocoa free as well.
And the easiest way I like to think about this, the metaphor that we use is think about a chocolate bar. So chocolate is made from the seeds of a cacao fruit pod. If you taste a cacao fruit, either the pulp or the pod itself, it's very astringent, sour, has tropical green notes, absolutely tastes nothing like a chocolate bar, which is very deep roasted flavor. The way that you get chocolate from that cocoa seed is multiple processing steps. And so we can use that as an inspiration and a roadmap for what we are doing. So what we do is we seek out commodities, like a starting point, similar precursors to the original ingredients in the products we're looking at recreating, and we guide them toward the new end product with these processes in mind. There are a few principles we use for this, which I think differentiates us from other food tech companies.
First, it has to be accessible. We're in the business of making food products that everyone in America and hopefully the world will be able to touch one day. We use lower cost ingredients to do this. And we pay attention to the next principle which is being scalable. So we need to use widely available ingredients. We can't use some niche ingredient that is very difficult to access. And we have to use scalable food manufacturing processes so that we can build a manufacturing facility. The third, it needs to be environmentally friendly. So we perform lifecycle analysis on all of our products to really address something that food manufacturers really need to do their part in.
And I think this is something really sensitive too because we are going after products that are so affected by climate change like coffee, like chocolate, that are slated to reduce in their availability by 70% in the next few decades. We use upcycled ingredients where we can. So our cocoa free chocolate uses grape seeds upcycled from wine manufacturing and juice manufacturing, and we also try to select crops that are more robust to climate change. And then lastly, it has to be delicious because no one's going to buy it if it doesn't taste good.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
That's so exciting. I think the term food tech is quite broad as well, and it's mostly being perceived by alternative meat companies or robot machinery. How do you personally define it and how do you also define it in terms of the work that you're doing at Voyage Foods right now?
Kelsey Tenney:
I think something that's really interesting is food technology used to be a term that essentially defined the science that goes into preserving, processing, keeping quality control of food. And so now food tech, shortened from food technology, has become a bit of a cringey term. I actually don't like using it very much. Because I think that we're really looking to go back to those original principles of food technology and just apply more scientific fundamental thought to what we're doing and looking more broadly into the world for inspirations on how we can do something that no one else has done before. I think food tech has become almost a meme in your head of someone who was like a software engineer and wanted to start a food company. And I think that's not the best image for food technology. So we're really trying to bring the concrete technology piece back to the food technology space.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
As I was taking a look at your website preparing for this, you talked about this concept of future proofing our favorite foods. What do you think future proofing means on an industry and also on a societal level?
Kelsey Tenney:
So we use the term future proofing, just coined it one day internally. And the way that we look at it is this concept of archiving food. So when you think of the seed bank for example, there's every seed that they could gather, is sitting in negative 80 degree freezers in case we need to regrow all of our crops one day. We're doing the same thing but with food in how we experience it. So mimicking taste, flavor, texture of food products so that should something happen or should something become more difficult to consume, when you think of something like peanut butter, we can preserve those food experiences forever. And we do this by mapping out these food products, how we can recreate them in an accessible less expensive way than some of the cell culturing work, for example, and have them around for as long as possible.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And you talk about accessibility. How did you think about accessibility not just in terms of kids who have peanut allergies or dairy allergies can enjoy these things, but also in terms of price and it being just as much as a jar of hazelnut spread or as a jar of peanut butter?
Kelsey Tenney:
It is a really big core R&D goal for us to make sure that everything is affordable. And if not line item price with the store brand of these products, line item price with the branded product. So for example, when you're going to your grocery store, the store brand peanut butter, we like to be line priced with that. And if not that, then the ubiquitous branded peanut butter you think of when you think of a peanut spread. And that was really important to us because we want to have the biggest impact possible. And the way to do that is to enable not only consumers to purchase it, but businesses to purchase it, so that they can introduce peanut flavored products in their facilities and give people the experience of a peanut flavored ice cream, for example, without having to spend $400 on a pint of ice cream or have it be something that could cause anaphylaxis.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Can you technically call it peanut butter if it's not peanut butter? Isn't there some consumer protection, marketing law you have to follow? I'm not super plugged into these things, but I'm just curious. Yeah.
Kelsey Tenney:
Yeah, definitely. So the standard of identity of peanut butter and chocolate, we would not meet that because we don't use peanuts or chocolate for example. And we also don't want to use those terms because we don't want to look like we're tricking the consumer. We really want people to be educated and aware of what they're purchasing, and purchasing it for a reason. And so the standard of identity for our peanut bread for example, is roasted seed spread. We've done a bunch of consumer work, and the thing that people gravitate to most is peanut-free spread. So you're giving them the idea of peanut, and we just have a photo of our actual product on the front, which looks like peanut butter, but really communicating that it's alongside a badge that says top nine allergen free, because our manufacturing facility in Oakland has no core allergens inside.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Okay. That's good to know. One of the biggest things is your go-to-market strategy and educating customers on incorporating Voyage product into their lives. As part of R&D, I'm sure you're doing some consumer testing, blind tasting. What was that process like and what were some of the biggest lessons that you learned?
Kelsey Tenney:
Yes. Our go-to-market strategy at Voyage is to really become a friend to the consumer so that we add value on a business to business side. So if you think about the Intel Inside model for example, we really want to be a branded ingredient that people know and trust, and that means building somewhat of a consumer brand in the grocery store. So our spreads, for example, are launching in Walmart in the fall, which we're very excited about to have a broader impact, show that real value and accessibility to our core potential consumers. And that means that when we're doing our sensory work in R&D and our consumer testing, we're really trying to test against the top branded products as well as the unbranded store brand products. So that's really the window people have when they're walking through the aisle. We could stack the deck and test against some of the alternatives out there because we know that they're not super tasty. But for us, in order to make sure that we're on track, we want to be at least parity in liking and similarity scores to these products.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
What are the demographics of people that you're testing? Are you testing kids, people who have allergies, people who want something healthier?
Kelsey Tenney:
Testing with kids is kind of challenging. It's definitely difficult to get large numbers of kids to eat your product in an inexpensive way. So what we're doing is we're looking at a couple of different markets. We use universities for their sensory testing and essentially we try to get a huge group of people, a hundred to 120 people that are basically an age range of like 22 to 55 for example. So we're trying to get more ages represented and then also equal split between men and women. And that represents generally our core consumer in retail.
Those people are not necessarily early adopters of what you would classically think of as food tech consumers, but they are people who are interested in the products that we're testing them in. So they have to like peanut butter for example, or hazelnut spread, chocolate hazelnut spread. And people that are interested in potentially trying new things if the cost point was there. And then we also test around the Bay area for example as well, so those are the very early adopter food tech consumers. So with that we hit two birds with one stone, making sure that we're not driving ourselves into that stereotypical food tech consumer, but also striving for the broader population.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
We have a lot of aspiring founders and creatives who listen to the podcast and something that I think is often not talked about but is important is the financing of these things. So you have raised over $41 million in funding. Congratulations. What was that process like of raising venture, especially before products were out there in the world? And what are some lessons that you take from that as you think about the financing of Voyage Foods onward?
Kelsey Tenney:
There's a couple of things here. One, my best friend and CEO Adam Maxwell handles a lot of the financing, but I've been blessed to be brought along on a lot of those meetings. We had a bunch of great connections from one of the previous companies we were at, Endless West. It's interesting because those investors knew us, and almost every investor that invested in Endless West wanted in on the next company. So that was really a nice headstart. And then as we went into the Series A, we were really looking at expanding that funding source. And we spoke with a bunch of different firms and I think one thing that really stood out is that in the food tech space especially people really want to make investments, but there's not a lot of really great ideas in the food tech space. There's a lot of copycat companies, a lot of vegan meat and dairy companies. And while that is definitely something that we should be tackling, there wasn't a ton of traction in those spaces, which we're seeing now with a lot of those companies having troubles raising more funds.
And we had a business that had a trajectory to make money right away, profitable from the beginning because of the core values of Voyage Foods. And we also had a great prototype that we could show people, plus the tenacity to really just do everything ourselves. And we built our first manufacturing facility before we had our Series A, which was very impressive to investors. And so that led to a pretty monstrous Series A and we were really excited. As we look to raise Series B, I think we really want to look for partners that want to help us grow further. We mentioned accessibility and that is really important to us and we want to touch as many consumer products and as many people's homes as possible to have the most impact. And so that requires a lot of growth. And so that's definitely something for us on the horizon as we look to the next phase of Voyage Foods.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Manifesting for a minute here. Is there someone you want to try your product?
Kelsey Tenney:
I think the team at Milk Bar has tasted our products, but I've always really loved Christina Tosi. I think that she has a really great ability to grow her vision and her company and just inject joy into everything, and so I would love for Christina Tosi to be a fan of Voyage Foods.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Awesome. You mentioned you had a co-founder and it seems like not only are you guys co-founders, you're really good friends as well. What has the process been like in developing a relationship, especially working on such a nascent product that doesn't really exist? How do you two as co-founders bring your own strengths together? And how do you think about the relationship in light of the work that you're doing?
Kelsey Tenney:
Yeah. So Adam and I, who is the CEO and co-founder with me, he is a very energetic person. He definitely brings that strength to the table. That's a really lovely trait in a leader often because he's very good at rallying people around him. We've been best friends now for six years, seven years. And we met at a food consultancy in Boston. The strength to our relationship is we have total trust in each other. I think partly that's because we've been friends for so long, so we can read each other and understand when something's bothering them or when someone just needs a minute. And I think partly sometimes that makes it more complicated because you're bringing different, I don't want to say baggage, but it is emotional baggage to the situation. So he and I are very open with each other about, I'm going to give you some feedback. I want to help you grow.
And we switch on business versus friend very easily. I think that's been something that we've really cultivated over the last few years together with this company. We've really grown with each other as we've expanded our ability to take on new information to manage more people. We started with a couple people two and a half years ago and now we have around 45 people. Yeah. We've definitely grown together. And I think I bring a lot of organization and just brute force to R&D along with some creativity. And he brings a lot of energy, like crazy scientist ideas because he's also a scientist in his background, and keeps me thinking about our core business objectives as well, which has been really nice balance for us as we grow the company.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
How do you think about sustainability from a company perspective, and how do you think that trickles down into the products that you're making?
Kelsey Tenney:
I have two different thoughts when you asked me that question. So one is the sustainability of our people. I've been at companies that are very stressful and burn people out. And you end up learning a lot, but after a year you're like, I've paid my dues and I'm leaving. The people as a resource at Voyage Foods are so important to what we're doing. And so for me, it's very crucial to check in with scientists and with other team members to ensure that they're getting the reset they need, especially with something as creative as research and development as they go along. And we also really foster great teamwork at Voyage Foods. So I have a vision statement for the lab and there's a whole paragraph in it about paying attention to each other and really caring about each other. And so we do a lot of activities together, a lot of offsites together. We went to Admiral Maltings a while ago, which is based in Alameda, California. They do malting themselves, malted barley, the old school way.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Wow. Very cool.
Kelsey Tenney:
Yeah, it's very cool. We do activities like that and it's good to show people new visions of food than what they're exposed to on a daily basis. Then I also like to think about sustainability in terms of what we're doing. And so reminding everyone about the responsibility we have as we're making new products, so looking at the sustainability of the ingredients they're sourcing, the processing they're using. If they don't have to use something that increases the energy costs and footprint by 3x, then we probably shouldn't do it and we should find another way to do it.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
I love that. Is there one piece of advice you'd give to consumers who want to consistently be sustainable in terms of how they shop or how they eat?
Kelsey Tenney:
Sustainability is really hard to shop for. Even as we're doing lifecycle analysis, there's not a lot of great data out there, even for companies that are really trying to do their best. The best piece of advice I have is when you're looking at sustainability numbers on a package, to seek out something called an ISO conformant report, which basically means that it's been vetted by third party reviewers, and thus has passed a standpoint of quality in terms of it's not just some random number that someone found on Google and put it on a package. And actually legally, if you have it on a package, you're supposed to have an ISO conformant report anyway to protect consumers from fraud. But we all know that sometimes that's not the case.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
I want to talk to you a little bit about the impact on being a scientist, being a female scientist, and how you think about that in the work that you're doing. It sounds like you had a really supportive family that encouraged you to be a scientist. And how do you think about the community of support right now as it exists for female scientists? And is there more work that can be done for scientists who identify as women, who identifies people of color, who identify as queer?
Kelsey Tenney:
Yes. I think food science as a field is actually much further along than other scientific backgrounds. My food science class had more women than men in it. But when you look at the echelon of leadership in companies in scientists, and when you look at grad school programs, and when you look at other scientific fields like chemistry, like biochemistry, they're much less women than men when you actually dig in past the first level layer. And so I think we're definitely doing better, but I think there is still some unconscious bias there. Something that my mom did at IBM was essentially ensure that technical talent has a pathway within IBM, and there's a certain age at which women scientists just drop off.
And I think we still see that across every company today. And so making sure that there is a pathway for technical leaders that are women or people of color to ensure that they feel like they belong and that they do have a pathway. That's been something that's really important. So maybe not just paying attention to someone who might be the best talker in the group, but someone who has a lot of talent and should be pushed forward.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
I know you already shouted out your professor and advisor, but is there another female scientist particularly in food that people should know about if they want to explore that world a little bit more?
Kelsey Tenney:
Yeah. I think Pia Sorenson, she's a professor at Harvard. I feel like some people have seen these videos now online, but she was one of the founders of the Science Meets Food course at Harvard, that invites a lot of celebrity chefs to come give talks. And she basically connects physics with the core processes behind food preparation. I actually interviewed her for a piece in Edible Boston when I lived in Boston, and she's just incredible and very down to Earth, but scientific thinker. And I think she's someone that people should look to as a mentor.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah. I read that piece. You've written some great stuff for them too.
Kelsey Tenney:
Oh, thank you.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
I learned so much about that space. I'm curious to hear how you think food scientists find themselves in the CPG space. I feel like most CPG founders are people who just have some passion for food, but not necessarily the scientific background. How do you think food scientists find themselves in terms of co-packing labs developing these products?
Kelsey Tenney:
I think food scientists feel a little villainized honestly in the food space. I think when you look at the core work that food scientists do, it's in those middle aisles of the grocery store. And so when you look at, for example, a box of craft macaroni and cheese, many, many food scientists have touched that. And yes, you shouldn't be eating that every day, but for a couple bucks, it's a pretty nutritious meal that people can afford. And so I think food scientists feel a little bit on the outs. I think there is with this resurgence of food manufacturing, especially at co-packers. There is more and more integration of food scientists in this new world of new consumer packaged goods and new brands that are coming out. But I still think often it's not a food scientist, it's a branding or design person or a business entrepreneur who's the face of those things. And I think people like working with food scientists and they find it really interesting and amazing, but I don't think people are proud necessarily outside of the scientific field to be a food scientist.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
That's tough to hear considering food wouldn't exist if we didn't have food scientists. Do you think there are things that can be done to allow for a more positive reaction or a positive way to understand food scientists that are doing good work? Obviously, there's also a flip side of a lot of food scientists that aren't necessarily made for the benefit of people. But for the ones that are doing the best that they can, what's a way for consumers to feel more comfortable and more at ease and feel this positive reaction towards scientists?
Kelsey Tenney:
Yeah. I think science and technology and food is necessary, but of course with that comes responsibility. So as a food scientist, you should really be doing your best to understand how people are utilizing your product, how many ingredients are going into it. And could you simplify it? Could you make it more nutritious? Will people still buy it? Will it be the same price? Things like that. But I think on the consumer side, I guess I would just say because science is so necessary in food, to not be afraid of it. I mentioned ingredients and I think there should not be 800 ingredients on a label, but I don't think consumers should look at something and be like, oh, oh, it has more than five ingredients, I don't want to buy it.
Because when you look at some of the best food you can make at home, there's usually way more than five ingredients in that product. And so I think being open to science and trusting of some of those things is difficult because of some of the work that food scientists have done over the last a hundred years. But I think it would really help bridge that gap and make it more of a two-sided street in terms of what consumers want and what scientists do.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
It's cool that you're a food scientist, but you're also someone that's very passionate about food. I looked at your food blog, Appeasing a Food Geek, which is awesome. You have such great recipes on there.
Kelsey Tenney:
Thanks.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
What does food look like for you outside of the office, outside of the R&D lab right now?
Kelsey Tenney:
I recently have been making a conscious effort to cook more because I know that sounds silly, but I often during the week, if you're staying late, working on things, eating out, things like that. And so I've been really trying to get in the kitchen more. I also love coming back to baking as a way to... It's like a form of escapism, but it also brings me back to my roots a little bit. So I love baking anything that Sarah Keefer does. She's the Vanilla Bean blog. I've done a lot of recipe testing for her cookbooks over the years, and I just think she has some of the best baking recipes you could ever ask for. And then I love on the savory side, Eden Grinspan has one of the funniest Instagrams, but is-
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Oh, she's the best.
Kelsey Tenney:
She just has some amazing Mediterranean food that I've been making recently, so that's sort of what my kitchen looks like right now.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Is there a restaurant in the Bay Area that you like that you're really enjoying these days?
Kelsey Tenney:
Yellow Moto Pizzeria. It's by Dolores Park. If you live in San Francisco, it's definitely a place I try to go to once a quarter or so. I love it there.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Nice. Kelsey, before we go, we're going to do our Future Flash Five. How are you feeling?
Kelsey Tenney:
Good.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Okay, cool. The future of coffee.
Kelsey Tenney:
New origins.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
The future of sustainable foods.
Kelsey Tenney:
Ubiquitous.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
The future for food scientists.
Kelsey Tenney:
Essential.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
The future for California produce.
Kelsey Tenney:
Bountiful.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And the future of food technology.
Kelsey Tenney:
Accessibility.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Amazing. Kelsey, if we want to keep supporting you, where are the best places to find you?
Kelsey Tenney:
I am on Instagram at kelsey_tenney. You can keep up with us on voyagefoods.com, which will be announcing some of our launches to make sure you can get product near you. As you mentioned, I do have a food blog, and that's appeasingafoodgeek.com.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Kelsey, it was so great chatting with you and can't wait to keep eating peanut-free spreads and seeing more of your work out there.
Kelsey Tenney:
Thank you.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Before we go, our guest is going to leave a voicemail at the Future Of Food Mailbox just talking to themselves 10 years from now. You have reached The Future Of Food Is You mailbox. Please leave your message after the beep.
Kelsey Tenney:
Hi, Kels. It's been a while and I hope in the last 10 years that you have continued to find personal and professional fulfillment. I can only imagine you are still doing the work that makes your soul sing. I have no doubt that you have become a fantastic role model for women everywhere, especially those in the math and science fields. Gone are the days when people talk about how unusual it is to see women in higher levels of science leadership. I hope that you have steered scientists to think deeper, wider, and more purposefully, as is your own motto. I have an idea of the new innovations you and your team are thinking up, but I'm sure you'll surprise me with all sorts of ambitious products. I can't wait to hear all about your personal and professional trials, triumphs and failures that have guided you here. Most importantly, are you still dipping your pizza and ranch or has San Francisco replaced that Midwestern trait? I'm sitting here at the precipice of launching our second product and going live at Walmart with our spreads. This will drive us closer to realizing the vision that Voyage is different from other food tech companies with technologies that are accessible to all. You've always wanted to change people's minds that science and food isn't scary, but necessary. 10 years from now, Voyage Foods is surely the ubiquitous firm that people think of when they think of food tech. I can only assume that you've enabled Voyage impact millions of people in a meaningful way. That's what matters most, and I'm sure you're crushing it. Save all of the stories for me.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
That's it for today's show. Do you know someone who you think is the future of food? Tell us about them. Nominate them at the link in our show notes, or leave us a rating and a review and tell me about them in the review. I can't wait to read more about them. Thanks to Kerrygold for sponsoring our show. The Future Of Food Is You is a production of the Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. Thanks to the team at CityVox Studios, executive producers Kerry Diamond and Catherine Baker, and associate producer Jenna Sadhu. Catch you on the future flip.