Week 2

Normally I write more eloquently, but I make this record at the end of every day. Sometimes I'm ready to run out that door. So, you'll have to work through it.


Monday 12/3: After a horrible nights rest from worrying about whether or not I’d be able to get to work in the morning and a smashed front door because of the high winds and violent storm, I managed to get to work in the snow. Note that I’ve never driven in snow with rwd- regardless of how little has fallen. I left with a lot of extra time and wound up being at work about 15 minutes earlier than intended and without complications. This morning I set up my office and multimedia. I now have faxes that are scanned and sent to my email when they are received, a phone, and more access to Outlook and a ton of Heinz confidential sites and databases.Today was my first cutting for one of my side projects; freezing pasta for reheating in the microwave. I had 9 different products to try on egg based and semolina based pastas. They were tested with spraying and tossing. 5 showed promise, 3 of which held a much greater promise. The next step is to narrow down those 5 to the best two or three and decrease the percentage of the solution in an attempt to make the product the most cost effective while still having desirable results. It’s very, very neat, but I really don’t like that I throw away so much food. It goes against what we’ve learned in school- sacrilegious almost. Today’s tests were successful and I’ll continue them through out the week.
I also set up a meeting with the team next week (literally everyone is booked or traveling this week) and we’re going to evaluate the 50+ ideas I have for the line extension. With any luck we can bring it down to ~20 and then send the results to a consumer panel to decide which names they like most. From there I’ll begin creating Gold Standard examples which will be subjected to more cutting and finally begin the process to commercialization.
The rest of my day will be spent learning to write my lab notebook in proper form and researching more ideas and trends congruent with my assignment.
Tuesday 12/4: I preformed 40 trials of high and low tests from the 5 acceptable results on Monday. I preformed the tests on two types of pasta at two different dilutions. Because I had the time, I also did 50% tests of those highs and lows too. It probably wasn’t necessary, but more knowledge is good knowledge. Some look promising, others not so much; however that is the point.
I didn’t realize how much time I spent in the lab until I sat down just now. Somehow I managed to work right on through lunch. I’d be taking care of that but the cafeteria is closed now, HA! For the remainder of the day I’ll be drawing up a results table to my test and making a note to myself to stash a pair of tennis shoes in my filing cabinet for long days in the lab.
Wednesday 12/5: Driving in 4 inches of snow for a half hour is extremely nerve racking. None-the-less, I made it without incident. During the morning I had an assignment to determine which current Boston Market consumer products could be claimed as "gluten free." I had to go through every ingredient in the ingredient lists and find one that would disprove the thought. After a massive amount of searching, three out of twenty-nine items have the capability of being produced as gluten free. After I finished that assignment I participated in a discrimination test. The first was for the Deli Mex Taquitos. The variable was unknown, but one of them was much more smoky and had more savory bottom notes that the other. The non flavorful one was noticeably drier too. The second test was for Basil Tossed Green Beans. Honestly, I didn’t taste any hint of basil in either sample, but I think (from tasting) that the variable was the sauce was cut with either butter or oil. One smelled and tasted noticeably sweeter and had a better mouth feel.(EDIT just found out that I was right, they were trying to reove PHO's, partially hydrogenated oils, from the product) I finished my tests and took a lunch break while watching the snow continually fall. After lunch, a very loud and intruding noise started coming from the air vents. Finally, the gentleman right below it got extremely peeved and called maintenance who "knew noise happened, but not like this." The sound is ‘normal’ but it got so bad that at least 4 other employees have noise canceling headphones that they use when they’re in their cubicles. They’ve been trying to fix it for a while. I plug my ears with a cheapie MP3 Player.
After lunch I was assigned to go through all of the Boston Market meals (yet again) and "identify the red listed, yellow listed, partially hydrogenated oils, and trans fat ingredients." Yet again, I went through every ingredient list for each SKU identifying whether each had these ingredients:
Red List:
Yellow List:
1. Level 1 or 2 allergen (Peanuts / Tree nuts)
1. Butylated Hydroxtoluene (BHT)
2. Monosodium Glutamate
2. Mono-tert-butyhydroquinone (TBHQ)
3. Sulfites (wines excluded)
3. Partially Hydrogenated Oils
4. Nitrites (meats excluded)
4. Chemical Preservatives
5. Red # 40
5. Level 3, 4 and 5 Allergens
6. Yellow #5 & #6
6. HFCS
7. Blue #1
7. Artificial flavor or color
8. Bromated flour
8. Artificial ingredient of any kind
9. Butylated Hydroxiyanisole (BHA)
9. Disodium inosinate / guanalate


I recorded and compiled them on a very extensive filed for a revamping of Boston Market meals for Health and Wellness. A large amount of time went into the production of the matrix- the other members of the group as well as mine.
Tomorrow is a very busy day consisting of meetings and presentations. One of the biggest coming in is Butterball who put together a demonstration of how we could further utilize turkey in our operations (must have killed and froze to many this Thanksgiving). Before that I also have the second cutting for my frozen pastas- I hope that goes well. There is also a cutting for some Giant Eagle- a large grocery store chain here- products that we produce. I was surprised to find that we made anything for them, but I guess its not out of the scope of practice.