Services Consulting
§ 01 / Consulting
Consulting & collaboration for real product and process decisions
I lead R&D at Stone Gate Foods and have worked across ingredients, plant-forward innovation, and household brands—from bench questions to what has to hold on the line. I take consulting and collaboration engagements when I can add technical depth and a clear point of view, without overpromising what science can prove.
What I bring
My Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota sits on extraction, under-used streams (for example barley malt rootlets and spent coffee), and how processing shapes quality in plant-based and related systems. In industry I have lived the full arc: product development, food safety coordination, and senior science leadership in alternative proteins and everyday consumer foods.
That combination matters when you need someone who can read the literature, challenge an experimental plan, translate sensory or shelf-life signals for non-scientists, and stay honest about uncertainty.
Where I can help
- Process troubleshooting, scale-up questions, and design of experiments that match your equipment and risk
- Shelf-life, quality, and reformulation tradeoffs framed for technical and cross-functional audiences
- Plant-forward categories, extraction, and valorization-style questions aligned with my published work
- Technical memos, summaries, and slide-ready narratives for leadership and external partners
- Manuscript or protocol review, and scoping of research partnerships or external testing
How engagements usually run
- Discovery — a focused call to understand goals, constraints, and what “good” looks like.
- Written scope — deliverables, cadence, and boundaries so expectations match on both sides.
- Execution — often a short sprint, a bounded review, or a longer retainer-style advisory rhythm, depending on risk and timeline.
You get the most from me when
- You can share formulation targets, process limits, decision timelines, and what you already tried
- You treat uncertainty as something to manage with data and judgment—not something to paper over
- Technical and business stakeholders are willing to align on what “evidence” needs to look like
What I do not take on
- Guaranteed regulatory outcomes or sign-off on label claims I did not develop with your team
- “Magic bullet” claims, rushed work without clarity on ownership, or engagements that need me to cut corners on food safety
- Full-time embedded roles inside your company (I am not available as a fractional head of R&D)