R&D Radio: Food Microstructure, Ultra-Processed Foods, and the Contract Manufacturer Formula Trap with Abbey Thiel

The Startup CPG Podcast

Startup CPG

Startup, Food, Business, Beverage, Cpg, Entrepreneurship

4.9 • 642 Ratings

🗓️ 8 June 2026

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of R&D Radio, hosted by food scientist Adam Yee, Adam sits down with Abbey Thiel, a food scientist, science communicator, and consultant with a PhD in Food Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and postdoctoral training at Wageningen University. Abbey specializes in food formulation, ingredient functionality, and technical problem solving for food and beverage brands — with deep expertise in confections and frozen desserts. She is also the creator of the YouTube channel Abby the Food Scientist, a six-year-old channel with over 150,000 subscribers, and the author of multiple books including a food science careers textbook and a candy science coloring book for kids.

Abbey started her channel during her PhD as a creative outlet — and what began as procrastinating on her dissertation became one of the most recognizable food science education platforms on the internet. Along the way, the channel turned into an unexpected client pipeline, with founders reaching out after finding her ingredient explainer videos at the exact moment something was going wrong with their product.

Adam and Abbey get into all of it — from the fascinating science of sponge candy and why gelatin will quietly sabotage your foam if you boil it, to the real reason ultra-processed foods make us overeat (hint: it is not the ingredient list, it is the microstructure), to the contract manufacturing trap that quietly kills small brands when founders realize too late they do not own their own formula.

Listen in as they cover:

Why you should bring a food scientist in before the catastrophe, not after it The microstructure of sponge candy — what foam actually looks like under a microscope and why every step in the process either protects or destroys it How Abbey diagnosed a failing candy product just by watching a video of the process Why gelatin must never be boiled — and what happens to it when you do The real science behind ultra-processed foods: why food microstructure and chewing matter more than the ingredient list What "natural" actually means — and why Abbey makes every client write a list before she starts formulating The contract manufacturing trap: how one founder had to hire Abbey to reverse engineer his own product because he never had the formula Why your co-manufacturer is not your friend — even if they are friendly How Abbey's YouTube channel became her most powerful business development tool Abbey's upcoming food science app launching this fall

Whether you are a founder scaling your first food product, a brand owner trying to navigate a co-man relationship, or someone who has always wondered why your gelato keeps breaking, this episode is for you.

Episode links:
Abbey Thiel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abigail-thiel-phd/
Abby the Food Scientist on YouTube: Search "Abby the Food Scientist"
Website: abbythefoodscientist.com

Don't forget to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify if you enjoyed this episode. For potential sponsorship opportunities or to join the Startup CPG community, visit http://www.startupcpg.com.

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Episode music by Super Fantastics

Transcript

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0:00.0	Did you hear that? That's opportunity knocking. We've been building something big.
0:08.0	Introducing Opportunity Knocks, a new campaign giving startup CPG brands exclusive, direct access
0:14.3	to submit to leading retailers, distributors, investors, media, and more. Here's how it works.
0:20.5	On Fridays, a new submission window opens
0:23.1	exclusively for active startup CPG email subscribers. Each campaign features a custom form tailored to
0:29.7	that partner. Share your brand story, products, distribution, and traction. Startup CPG delivers your
0:36.2	applications directly to the partner's team.
0:38.9	Some campaigns include a live fireside chat so you can meet the partner and ask questions directly.
0:44.7	To get every drop, subscribe at startupcg.com slash okay. That's just the letters O and K.
0:51.8	Today's drop is live and it's with Rayleigh's. Ready, go. Go subscribe, go submit. Good luck. Bring on a food scientist early on, because like, I'm sure you and I, we can look at a formulation.
1:24.0	And even if everything is hunky dory right now, you can kind of know, like, what are five bad things that could potentially happen? And then at least you have like a game plan. Because as you scale up, right, these things are going to happen. They'll be like, oh, my formula is great now. And I'm like, yes, because you made it in your kitchen. But when it's like sheared, when it's made in large amounts,
1:48.1	when it's pumped, when it's at these higher temperatures, like there's several things that are going to change. Hi everyone. This is Adam Yee, food scientists and podcast hosts of Sartive
1:54.9	CBG's R&D Radio, where you interview food scientists and product developers and what they do
2:00.7	and how they can help you build your CPG business.
2:03.6	Today I'm interviewing Abby Feel, a food scientist, science communicator, and consultant specializing in food formulation,
2:10.6	ingredient functionality, and technical problems solving for food and beverage brands.
2:15.6	With a PhD in food science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and post-doctoral training
2:19.9	at Wahanagan University and research, Abby has worked across research, education, and industry
2:26.2	innovation with particular expertise in confections and frozen desserts.
2:30.8	She's also the creator of the YouTube channel Abby the Food Scientist, which is a 6-year-old YouTube channel with over 150,000 subscribers.
2:38.0	There she helps hundreds of thousands of viewers better understand the science behind food, ingredients, and processing.
2:45.0	Abby is also passionate about making food science accessible to younger audiences.
	...

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