In this episode of R&D Radio, hosted by food scientist Adam Yee, Adam sits down with Lara Tiro, founder of Rebel CPG — a commercialization and innovation agency helping food entrepreneurs bridge the gap between a great recipe and a retail-ready product. Lara is a food scientist with over 20 years of experience in food manufacturing, quality assurance, product development, and commercialization. She has worked with brands across baking, frozen foods, refrigerated products, plant proteins, and value-added food categories, and is known for her practical, business-first approach to helping founders scale without bleeding money.

Lara started her career grading organic eggs at a tiny local farm, moved on to processing raspberries at a jam facility, built her foundation in food safety and quality assurance, and eventually moved into product development for a commercial bakery before launching Rebel CPG in 2021. Along the way she picked up a degree combining food science and economics at the University of British Columbia — a combination that shapes everything about how she thinks about this industry.

Adam and Lara get into all of it — why getting cozy with COGS is the single most important thing a food entrepreneur can do, how the PB&J framework gives founders a structure for thinking about their product, brand, and business, and why your formula is always going to change at scale and that is not a failure. Lara also shares a real client story about scaling a frozen baby food product from a home kitchen recipe to a commercially viable product — and what that process actually looks like when done right.

Listen in as they cover:

• Why COGS is the most important and most overlooked thing early stage food founders need to understand
• The PB&J framework: Product, Packaging, Pricing, Process, Brand, Buyer, Baseline, and Joy
• Why your formula will always change at scale — and how to be okay with that
• The real difference between a recipe and a commercially scalable formula
• How Lara helped Wholesome Yum founder Megan take a frozen baby food concept from home kitchen to retail-ready product
• Why food safety is the foundation of everything — and why it does not get celebrated enough
• The role of packaging in product development — and why it has to be developed in parallel with formulation
• What hydrocolloids and tamarind seed gum are doing in the sauce and dressing category right now
• A palm oil fat replacer made of dietary fiber that Lara is helping launch at a sauce conference
• Why done is better than perfect in product development — and what that actually means in practice

Whether you are a founder trying to scale your first product, a food entrepreneur who has been told it will be cheaper when you scale, or someone who just wants to understand what a food scientist actually does, this episode is for you.

Episode Links:

Rebel CPG Website: https://www.rebelcpg.com 

Rebel CPG LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rebelcpg/ 

Lara Tiro on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laratiro 

Munching on Molecules Podcast: available on Apple, YouTube, and Spotify

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.

Show Links:

• Transcripts of each episode are available on the Transistor platform that hosts our podcast here (click on the episode and toggle to “Transcript” at the top)
• Join the Startup CPG Slack community (35K+ members and growing!)
• Follow @startupcpg
• Visit host Adam's Linkedin 
• Questions or comments about the episode? Email Daniel at podcast@startupcpg.com
• Episode music by Super Fantastics