One aspect that we pride ourselves on at Azelis Food and Nutrition US is our ability to answer technical questions for our customers. Whether the question is about the functionality of an ingredient or which usage levels make sense for the end application, we want to ensure we’re finding the right solution.
When our customers need support as they are incorporating our ingredients into their new or existing product, our Food Technology Manager comes to the rescue with her vast knowledge in the food, beverage and pharmaceutical formulation space.
Learn more about our Food Technology Manager, Lindsay Ton!
1. Give us a little background on yourself. What did you do before Azelis Food and Nutrition US?
I graduated UCSB with a BS in biological sciences. I was R&D for nutraceutical and food – both manufacturers and co-manufacturers. I did mostly formulation and new product development, from conceptualization to commercialization. I have experience with supplements (tablets, capsules, powders, & gummies) and food (fresh foods such as salads, dips, hummus, and burritos), soups, sauces, bakery items (cakes, cookies, and brownies) and frozen foods (pastas, tacos, cheesecakes), and ready to eat meals.
Being in R&D I had to be cross functional and collaborative, I had to know every process that involved launching a new product. I had to do sales (creating relationships with customers/vendors), document writing (creating specifications and batch records), procurement (sourcing new ingredients and help implement new supply contracts), quality (food safety/ testing), and packaging. Along with new product development, I had to also maintain/improve current products in terms of process and cost. I did a lot of troubleshooting and CAPA as well for any challenges that was on the production floor. With 8 years of experience on the R&D, supply chain, operations, and manufacturing side, I have a great background and knowledge to help our customers.
2. What is your position at Azelis Food and Nutrition US?
My position is Food Technology Manager.
3. What are your main responsibilities?
-Document control and requests with the Documents Team
-Handle compliance (quality) cases
-Work on getting Azelis Food and Nutrition US BRC certified – this will help line align our company with GSFI and improve our food safety and quality control standards.
-Support our Account Managers with their customers’ technical questions, ultimately advising them on how to use our ingredients
-Build the Azelis Food and Nutrition US R&D application laboratory. This is will be a great service to our customers. With the applications lab we can help our customers with formulas, shelf life studies, technical challenges, NPD, troubleshooting with any of the ingredients, and customers can come work in our lab (to bench or learn how to use our ingredients). We can offer state-of-the-art technology, a fully equip demo kitchen, and insight on product formulation to our customers once the lab is built and we have a stellar team of food technologists/scientists.
4. What does a typical day look like for you?
Meetings and reviewing documents/compliance cases on Salesforce. I do a lot of researching for my projects listed in question 3.
5. What are some of the challenges for you in this role?
Handling the compliance cases as each case is never the same since we have a wide variety of ingredients and we also a wide variety of customers. Each quality issue case needs a lot of research to create a CAPA process to prevent the issue from happening again. It is important to possess a strong attention to detail, thorough understanding of the HACCP/supply/manufacturing process, and a robust ability to problem solve to ensure quality and customer satisfaction.
6. What is the best part of your role?
Helping our customers with any technical/trouble shooting questions regarding our ingredients. Helping our customer with using our ingredients and helping them with their formula/recipe. For example, introducing a customer to Microgard to decrease mold growth and extend their shelf life on their products is great solution and a win for both of us.