Episode 32: My Food Job Rocks with Adam Yee

About the guest 

Adam Yee is the podcast host of My Food Job Rocks!, where he interviews professionals in the food industry to uncover their career journeys and passions. With over 250 episodes and hundreds of blog posts on career advice, Adam aims to showcase the intelligence, drive, and enthusiasm within the food industry. His podcast has been downloaded over 150,000 times, and his website has attracted more than half a million views, serving as a valuable resource for aspiring food scientists and industry professionals looking to network and grow their skills.

Transcript

0:00
I'm Zachary Cartwright this is water and food today my guest is Adam Yee who is

0:05
the podcast host of my food job rocks he interviews people from the food industry and discusses why they love their jobs

0:11
and how they got to where they are today with over 250 episodes and hundreds of

0:17
blog posts about career advice Adam's goal is to show that the food industry is full of smart driven and passionate

0:23
people as of today the podcast has been downloaded over 150 000 times and his

0:30
website has over half a million views helping those who are interested in learning more about the food industry

0:35
and helping other food scientists to network and grow their skills let's hear what Adam has to say on this episode of

0:42
water and food alright well hi Adam welcome to the podcast thank you for being on water and food yeah it's good

0:49
to be here thanks that Adam I I know you have your own podcast and I was hoping you could tell us a little bit about what that

0:55
podcast is and what listeners can expect to hear yeah so I run the my food job rocks

1:01
podcast um it's a podcast where we interview experts in the food industry about

1:06
um pretty much what they do how they got there and then we asked some questions about the

1:12
insights that they have um based off of their field of expertise so it's it's a pretty well-rounded

1:18
podcast with over 250 episodes um and also a Content piece on a website

1:24
called my food job rocks um where I write pretty much every week

1:29
about a topic I find interesting from career advice to Myers Briggs personalities which is surprisingly the

1:36
most popular articles on the website and um in general just just food industry

1:42
Insight so I built this for over five years I just did it weekly

1:48
and um it then it got a following um you know I would say that I worked a

1:55
good amount on pushing it out there and um and it's been very rewarding it's been

2:01
extremely rewarding to um create something share it get

2:06
feedback instantly and have people tell their friends about it

2:12
and where did the original idea come from to to do this yes so I'm just let

2:18
me remember really really far back uh it has been a while but I will say that um

2:25
my second job yeah when I was in Phoenix Arizona I started listening to podcast a

2:32
lot of the way to learn more um I was an entrepreneurial podcast at first

2:38
um just because I was kind of into it and started to really like it during my morning commutes and so you know then

2:45
once she was in the podcast for like three months everyone was like oh well I should probably start my own podcast but but like you know you never pull the

2:52
trigger until something happens and uh in this case it wasn't anything like

2:57
glamorous or anything but I've noticed a few articles I've posted about uh we need more Talent the food industry

3:03
pretty um and there are two articles in particularly one was from like the VP of Cargill

3:08
um yeah so you have like kind of this uh this important person quote unquote I'm

3:15
talking about needing more talent and then there was this um this person who's who just started her

3:21
food recruitment company and um I reached out to both of them guess who

3:26
responded um this person who was just starting her ate her agency and um we got to talking

3:32
about creating a podcast and um she let me have a lot of control over it so I

3:38
decided to launch it under her name at first and then eventually um moved it to its own home I I mean the

3:45
big thing to understand here is that uh it only worked because I saw that there

3:51
was a need which is uh pretty common in most um idea formations

3:58
um but because also there I had support she was my biggest fan uh she is my

4:03
biggest fan uh every every time we talk um it's always great to hear her uh her

4:08
name is Nicole gallis from food grads and so uh she she started the same time I did it was the perfect partnership in

4:15
terms of building that um bases to launch and to just have that support

4:20
network that even if you didn't have even if you had like one follower at least you had one follower that um

4:27
that you want to keep on going so that was a catalyst of starting my food job

4:32
Vlogs was pretty much just this one supporter that eventually grew to and

4:38
then four and then eight and 16. and so and so on and how do you go about finding food

4:45
scientists for your podcast are these people you know personally or people that reach out to you or do you do a lot of work trying to find a certain food

4:52
scientist in a certain position at a specific company yeah so uh let me tell you the evolution of how I um got gas

5:00
because uh I I would say before when I would talk about the students um I followed a Snowball Effect and and

5:07
there are certain stages where uh I found getting guests the most effective

5:13
so the first time I started my food job rocks I actually contacted my my uh

5:19
College classmates who really liked food science the the people that um we we talk all the time about kind of

5:26
food and and some people had very specific topics for instance so one of

5:33
my first episode um was my friend at a chocolate factory

5:39
because he just could not shut up about chocolate he would talk about chocolate all the time his dream was working in

5:44
Chocolate Factory and he did it um and uh he worked in San Francisco dandelion chocolate

5:51
um and she still works there now you know that's it that tells you a lot right

5:56
um but but that's uh that was one example like okay I know passionate

6:01
people in the food industry I'm gonna just talk to the people I know my friends so the first five episodes were pretty

6:09
much um my friends uh and that's how I launched it um my friends from college in different

6:17
Industries um and it was really fun uh so once I had like five episodes I was able

6:24
to share it with other people and one person and I first started with a

6:30
professional called Howard Moscow it's uh in the food science circles he's pretty famous for a sensory scientists

6:37
um and he pretty much discovered that people like different things if you if I were to put it kind

6:43
of bluntly um but he was he was recently posting on LinkedIn so uh I shared it with them

6:49
it's like hey I'm doing this little thing do you want to go on I I've heard a lot about you uh you know kind of

6:55
embellished a little bit and uh and he uh he was happy to go on it that told me

7:01
like wow people people want to go on my by podcast um you know this guy is famous in his

7:07
Circle so but you know maybe not in other Circle so it I thought it was unbelievable but and then hindsight I

7:13
was like okay this guy just wants to be heard um and I noticed a lot of scientists that want to be heard as well so once I

7:20
had a capable set of people it was easy to or easier to prove that I

7:28
was like actually serious but you know there's also other points where you weren't that serious so like official organizations in food science like

7:35
thought I was just like some kid just with a side project uh and it took me a while to convince them that like this

7:42
was a legitimate project uh and this will happen all the time so I think uh

7:47
from six to probably 80 or 90 all I did really was

7:54
um or scroll through Linkedin a lot uh find people who want to be

8:00
um known and then this involves people who just post and maybe get like five likes on LinkedIn

8:05
um and then um and then I would reach out to them and

8:10
90 of the time they would say yeah I'd like to be on the show and I would

8:15
interview them and post them and people liked it so it usually involve like

8:21
young people you know more experienced professionals they would involved food scientists they would involve marketing

8:28
um people any any one of the Spectrum in the food industry I would interview

8:34
um and then there was a point then where PR

8:39
firms would then Google like food podcasts and then they would find my food job rocks and then it'll reach out

8:45
to me so around maybe episode I think 82 like essentially 250.

8:52
um were actually uh half of them I would say or more than half were PR firm guests that that PR partners would reach

9:00
out to me and and say hey this guy has a new book hey this guy just launched a

9:05
new restaurant hey hey this girl has a new um you know cooking demo and uh we would

9:12
collaborate with these PR firms to uh to pretty much

9:17
um get them on board and do an episode and that's where I met like a lot of

9:22
amazing people um and you know one example is like Harold McGee the guy who wrote on food

9:28
and cooking um and he he's kind of like this uh this

9:35
this Prime introducer of Food Science whoever looked up to and he had a new

9:40
book out and his PR firm reached out to me saying like hey uh you know Harold McGee well he wrote a good book and so

9:47
it was great to like talk to him to promote that book for instance um so so that's kind of the basis of it

9:53
is that it was an evolutionary progress based off of uh how popular the podcast was and I think that's I need to keep

10:01
that in mind is that like these things are evolutionary um as you grow with uh whatever you

10:07
create and what is your own history or maybe your own experience with food science

10:13
going from studying food science and then have you also worked in the industry some maybe you can talk about

10:18
that a little bit great yeah so um I'm uh legit not legitimate that's

10:24
that's a weird word uh I'm a professional food scientist uh so I have my bachelor's uh Cal poly's House of

10:30
bispo um I then I've done a whole sort of slew

10:36
of jobs uh they've all been incremental in my career growth I'd say

10:41
you know they're people who do like eight jobs and they don't really they become stagnant at the end but at least

10:47
for me I've had like excuse um got like five jobs I think uh and uh

10:54
they've all been uh really important uh for me to grow as a food scientist so uh the first job I had

11:02
um was working at granola bar Factory uh in Phoenix Arizona uh and this was like

11:08
a four four a.m job uh helping the line workers make granola

11:13
bars and I was supposed to be the process expert there um even though it was my first job which

11:19
uh yeah it was tough it was a really tough job um but if I taught me a lot about manufacturing it taught me a lot about

11:25
Factory workers the guys who are actually making your food um and it taught me how to be more

11:31
sympathetic to them especially when you design formula so I took that um

11:36
into account for uh my next job at Isagenix which is uh essentially a multi-level marketing

11:43
um nutrition company uh I was a research scientist which they treat very well there

11:49
um and so I would design protein powers for the company and uh that's kind of

11:57
where I first got introduced to plant-based products and so once I once I

12:03
launched a few plant-based products uh I did start my food job roster that time at around episode 102 I interviewed um

12:11
an animal activist named Paul Shapiro who then um three months later reached out saying

12:16
hey Tony can you scientists are gonna help me on this new Venture and it was like oh okay well I'm a food scientist I

12:22
could probably help and working with him I was able to collaborate and

12:29
create a company called better Miko which is still active in Sacramento uh California

12:35
um and they make alternative needs specifically mycelium products and so that's so you

12:44
know starting on business I can probably go through another hour of that but it was it was you just learned a lot of

12:49
micro skills that you don't um realize um you learn until later uh but but it was

12:57
a fantastic experience uh which then I later uh moved on I had a short stint at

13:03
wework uh if you guys don't know what that company is uh there's a long history on that one

13:08
um but sharks you know we work to develop their food incubator program but unfortunately the pandemic did stop that

13:15
project but then I switched to Motif Food Works which is a a pretty well-funded food Tech startup in Boston

13:22
Massachusetts where I uh commercialized the Precision fermented um product which is essentially

13:29
um all by myoglobin that you can put into plant-based meat uh and and then after that I I just I don't know if

13:36
there had an extra crisis or um or I just felt like it was time but I

13:41
decided to quit that job and uh recently now traveling the world interviewing people for my new job rods um starting

13:49
from Australia and I don't know where we're gonna end up but right now I'm in Singapore

13:56
um what are some of the the Hot Topics that you've covered recently like you just said I noticed that you have

14:01
plant-based Meats um and food Innovation listed as some of your top topics on

14:06
your LinkedIn but since you've talked to so many different food scientists what do you see as maybe emerging topics or

14:12
top topics moving into the maybe the next five or ten years

14:18
that's a good question I I do ask that a lot with my guess like what do you see coming up

14:23
um I think in a trendy perspective uh

14:28
upcycling or or uh you know they usually call Food waste but that didn't sound as full so now they rebranded to upcycling

14:36
um is getting popular but it's not it's not that popular but it is getting

14:42
there uh there are I have a lot of friends in the industry and I think it's what they do is really admirable but it

14:47
it unfortunately doesn't get as much uh press as other food Trends um which is a shame but you know Trends

14:54
take time uh I I think you know the hottest topic is plant-based meat it is going through a depression like

15:01
um uh what is a slope of depression or uh it is going through

15:08
um I guess a a negative press cycle I would say which is which is fine it happens in all Industries uh and I not

15:18
only am I kind of in that field but I also have a lot of friends in that field um but that's gonna probably keep on uh

15:25
keep on chugging just because it's it's such a long game for for a lot of people

15:31
and there's still a lot of money into it and it's just there's some experiments

15:36
that aren't going as well and they will see another cycle of experiments and maybe they will go as well or maybe they won't but that's always going to be

15:43
probably a big topic for me um I would say also um low sugar or reuse calorie sugar

15:51
um is probably going to be an everlasting Topic in the food industry there's always going to be a new sugar

15:58
um watching like alumos uh was this year or no aliolus was like five years ago

16:04
and and now there's this new sugar I forgot what it's called that that was popping up recently so you're always

16:09
going to have sugar reduction strategies in the food industry because people just wanna we still have a sugar problem

16:16
um in the food industry so people are still going to try to figure out how to reduce that uh and another one is uh

16:22
cell based meat so uh meat created um from a cell of an animal and grown is
 

16:29
going to be a pretty popular high-tech Topic in the future that

16:34
um you know probably won't be commercialized in like five years uh but there there is a path going forward I
 

16:41
recall like five years ago talking about like you know plant-based meat and
 

16:46
um it's it's now it's not pretty popular so I think this is going to happen with cell based meat
 

16:52
as well um so those are kind of the main Trends I I've been talking to with people uh and my
 

17:00
network is mainly alternative me people uh and just because I have a lot of
 

17:05
experience and uh the the community in the alternate needs space uh they do
 

17:11
want to help each other out um but I do think that and and as in the
 

17:17
food the food industry is huge but no one knows about it uh the the micro uh
 

17:22
systems in there whether it be you know food safety which there are a lot of podcasts about food safety
 

17:28
um or what else is there uh I I guess like in general like food news which
 

17:33
there there are a handful as well um those those niches themselves also provide a lot of community and have a
 

17:41
lot of people who who want to talk in those sort of big podcasts but uh you
 

17:46
know there's like five food safety podcasts so I tend to stay away from them but sometimes I bring it on a food
 

17:53
safe you guys just to understand um no whether current Technologies or uh
 

17:59
curious about like how they how they um how they think is a big one actually
 

18:06
um and I think with my Pooja products one of the biggest um lessons I've learned is that different
 

18:13
people from different departments um think differently and the reason and
 

18:19
if we respect that and understand where they come from you that can become a more productive um essentially uh ecosystem
 

18:28
and you mentioned earlier you're over 250 episodes now I I mean congrats that that's amazing I I think we're on
 

18:35
episode 31 or 32 somewhere in that area nice it's been a long road to get that many so 250 is is definitely an
 

18:42
accomplishment and uh I've had the chance to listen to some of your episodes and I'm wondering if if you
 

18:47
have a favorite episode a personal favorite and also a crowd uh favorite maybe an episode with the most listens
 

18:54
or downloads yeah so um my personal favorite is is a dietitian from Taco Bell her name is
 

19:00
Missy shapeock I think it's episode 91. um it's it once she's amazing but two
 

19:07
like having it it just tells you it's so important things like okay why would a
 

19:12
fast food um company want a registered dietitian
 

19:18
um it it Sparks a lot of questions and but it makes sense at the end of the day so
 

19:24
uh Missy did get hired kind of I want to say accidentally but more more so got
 

19:30
hired um as a force fit so just just it wasn't like a role that said registered
 

19:35
dietitian she just she joined and made the role herself and which is it's a very important takeaway
 

19:42
um so with the registered hydrogen background um she can make goals and then Implement them in
 

19:50
Taco Bell so so um and the way she talks is is great because she talks in metrics which means
 

19:57
like and during my time for example I took around x amount of sugar or grams of
 

20:04
sugar um away from Taco Bell or or I reduce the sodium by x amount
 

20:11
um as kind of these goal posts for this she also introduced a vegetarian menu she's
 

20:17
she's done a lot of initiatives to improve Taco Bell's um
 

20:22
Health credential or not Health credentials um improved Taco Bell is a kind of image so there was an article
 

20:28
like let's say on food be saying uh Taco Bell is a low-key healthiest restaurant in the United States
 

20:34
um and that is mainly because of her so I you know that that podcast is an
 

20:39
example of just someone who you know has a job that no one really expects but
 

20:44
does a lot of impact and and those are the jobs that I I really like to see when I interviewed they are hard to kind
 

20:51
of get uh or and because no one likes to talk about them but um in my opinion
 

20:56
that's that's what makes companies unique um so that's my favorite episode the
 

21:02
most valid episode um is a professor from North Carolina State University and this guy is a very
 

21:09
prolific um just nice guy he's really inspired a lot
 

21:14
of food scientists to become food scientists in North Carolina State University uh every time I mentioned him
 

21:20
he's like oh yeah he's amazing um and so uh you know I think once you have fans
 

21:26
the good news about Guest podcasts is that uh uh generally
 

21:32
it people want to know more about the people that have impacted them so for example for uh him Gabriel Keith Harris
 

21:38
from and uh NCSU um people want to know more about him and so they would they would throughout
 

21:45
his influence throughout uh how he's influenced people throughout his uh
 

21:51
teaching years um they really wanted to know him so
 

21:56
that's why I that's why I believe that episode got the most is because uh he really did make an impact in people's
 

22:02
lives and have you had any podcasts that maybe
 

22:08
focus on moisture control or water activity or anything like that never sorry no I I I I have not
 

22:16
um yeah uh well I guess my next question is would you like to have an episode like
 

22:23
that yeah we'll see unfortunately I am booked dude um but yeah I mean this is a good pitch
 

22:29
I guess well this is a long game pitch um yeah let's let's talk uh I will say
 

22:35
though that I am limiting um I made this promise to a lot of people I am limiting the guests to just
 

22:41
who I'm traveling with and every time I go to a new place like uh there seem to be tons of people uh I can interview
 

22:49
um but I'll let you know sure and I'm just kind of kidding around but I I am just kind of wondering you
 

22:55
know if moisture or water control is something that comes up among all of these different scientists that you
 

23:00
speak to or or if it's something uh maybe that that people need more education on yeah I think
 

23:07
I think we take it for granted right like I don't know what do you mean water activity or or moisture content um
 

23:13
um uh those are kind of like the bread and butter of uh essentially basic science in the food
 

23:20
industry uh which then people take for granted right it's it's like a I don't know boiling water yeah
 

23:27
um like no one no one wants to talk about boiling water but you know it is important because how smooth you want to get on that so um
 

23:35
you know I do like it when I interview people who have an obsession with with a certain
 

23:40
category or a specific topic um but yeah I never I haven't
 

23:46
interviewed that many uh analytical um especially from what I understand instruments uh in that in that way I
 

23:53
think maybe once or twice but no I forgot but anyways um it's you know it just tells you how
 

24:00
wide the food industry is and depending on what topic you really want to go to
 

24:06
um like there is an expert in almost anything you could think of
 

24:12
yeah definitely and that's something that I've learned as well being able to speak with other food scientists is kind
 

24:17
of like you said before everybody knows a little bit and I think it works best when we all kind of collectively come
 

24:23
together and and learn and bounce ideas back and forth and this kind of leads me to my next question as as food
 

24:28
scientists because you get to speak to so many different food scientists at lots of different companies and lots of
 

24:34
different positions in your opinion what can we as food scientists collectively
 

24:40
be doing better to advance our field of study yeah I think you you see this a lot in
 

24:47
the corporate world is that um it's easy to get siled into your
 

24:52
department thinking that your department is kind of the best and that they're always right uh well my food job rocks
 

24:59
has really uh shed the light is that you know essentially we're all passionate human beings that want to do the best
 

25:04
job possible um and every you know business unit has
 

25:10
its um own directives in a sense where uh may may clash with uh your uh your
 

25:17
own Department's uh directives um and that's okay I think we just have
 

25:23
we get we can't go into screaming matches or or uh passive aggressive
 

25:28
disagreements uh when we when we deal with um difficult problems especially when it
 

25:35
comes to commercializing certain things uh this this happens quite often no one likes to
 

25:42
talk about it but it happens all time um in pretty much all companies uh the
 

25:48
bigger the company generally the the harder it is um and so you know I think uh advice for
 

25:56
especially young professionals is really like uh talk to the other side
 

26:04
um and understand where they're coming from um and try to be the I would say even
 

26:09
the champion to bring those sides together is really important and it'll help you throughout your whole career uh
 

26:16
I think that the you know if you are super ambitious and you're listening to this um uh if VPS and you know Executives uh
 

26:25
their whole like kind of which career trajectory is about
 

26:30
um fixing these problems really is about um being the one who steps up being the
 

26:36
one who um wipes off all of the uh all the noise and all of the
 

26:42
all the kind of drama and pushes people to a clear path forward and I think if
 

26:50
we have more young people who take initiative and I will say that this is very hard to do
 

26:56
um by understanding one another I think um I think we'll have a better food industry
 

27:03
and finally what is next uh for you and and what is next for your podcast you know you've talked about how it's
 

27:09
evolved over time where do you see this podcast going maybe in five ten years down the road
 

27:15
oh man another five or ten years um I don't know um or one year or six months what is
 

27:21
next yeah I mean so every year I would write these um kind of sappy um posts about my life uh just just a
 

27:28
whole review of how I've seen how I wanted my free job rocks to go and I would say it's
 

27:34
like 80 of those Visions I didn't fruition and that's fine and and I think
 

27:40
that's that's at least I tried and it didn't work and I'm like okay we'll try
 

27:46
the next thing that comes to mind uh or maybe I just got bored with it so I think the big one is that
 

27:53
um I don't like to think if I'm 10-year increments I I just uh just for me that just hasn't worked well in my life
 

28:00
um for me every year has been exciting and has been full of Adventure and uh if
 

28:06
I had a plan I don't think it would have been as exciting um and so I I treated the same way I
 

28:13
think the big one though is that um I I don't want my Fuji rocks just to be my
 

28:20
food job rather than this is going to sound like a selfish egotistical like Maniac but uh I want to be
 

28:26
um someone who's well known in the food industry I I think um
 

28:31
can you take away Adam ye from Michael Adam you go somewhere what does that
 

28:37
mean the the micro job Roxanne carry with it what carries with it when uh I
 

28:42
split apart from my fujo rux and um I've done some experience with this and
 

28:47
essentially everyone this is a podcast doesn't think I'm a food scientist or an entrepreneur
 

28:54
um uh but when I split away from that everyone thinks I'm not a podcaster so uh it's it's been it's been a very
 

29:00
interesting um uh mix-up in in terms of going uh
 

29:05
splitting away from the podcast but but yeah I do want to I do want to be more
 

29:12
I don't want to say opinionated but I do want to um I do feel like I want to be someone
 

29:19
whose thoughts do matter in the food industry uh
 

29:24
and I think I'm leaning more into that as as I continue on with my pujab rocks
 

29:31
I think before I just wanted to be um someone who uh just interviewed people and would post those interviews
 

29:37
up but as over time I think uh and this involves a lot with you know getting
 

29:43
more experience and getting more accomplishments and blah blah blah um it's just something that I think my
 

29:50
ego wants to feed uh more than anything but uh it seems like people like my
 

29:56
opinions sometimes uh I haven't been a hater who hated my opinions I'll say
 

30:01
that um so uh it's something that I've been implementing a little bit more on
 

30:06
the new episode of my future Rock so you'll hear a lot more about some some small business insights
 

30:12
um and you'll also hear kind of more wholesome topics at the end uh and I
 

30:18
didn't do that before so so I think the evolution will be more how do I separate or if I if I separate
 

30:27
my Puja rugs who's out of me I think that that's uh that's where it's going right now
 

30:34
[Music] I think for me just just in my opinion you I I view as becoming somebody in the
 

30:42
a leader in the food industry because to me you're somebody who acts as glue almost to to uh coordinate all of these
 

30:50
different food scientists and bring them together and say it's okay for you to come on the show and talk about your problems and your journey because that
 

30:56
can really benefit another food scientist or a group of food science or another company and and that's something
 

31:02
that I strive for as well myself you know getting these insights and making a food science Network where we can all
 

31:09
benefit so I really appreciate your time Adam um you're somebody who I look up to and

31:14
somebody who has set a really good example of how you've started a podcast and it's evolved over time and it

31:20
continues to grow so I really appreciate your insights today and your time yeah thanks thanks for uh reminding me Zach

31:26
this is really fun I'm Zachary Cartwright this is water in food

31:32
find this podcast on Apple iTunes Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts