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launchreadyfoods.com
  • Home
  • Work With Me
    • How I Can Help
    • Ways To Work Together
  • Contact
  • About Kurt

How I Can Help

I work with food companies that need experienced R&D help without adding unnecessary complexity. That might mean developing a product, getting it ready for manufacturing, improving sensory testing, or stepping in to strengthen an R&D function.

Core Services

Product Development & Commercialization

Product Development & Commercialization

Product Development & Commercialization

Turn ideas and prototypes into products that can actually be manufactured and launched.

Formulation, product improvement, scale-up, plant trials, co-manufacturer support, troubleshooting, and commercialization.

Explore Product Development

Sensory & Consumer Testing

Product Development & Commercialization

Product Development & Commercialization

Make better product decisions with the right testing, not just opinions around a conference table.

Consumer testing, descriptive and difference testing, in-house panels, test design, and building or improving sensory programs.

Explore Sensory Testing

R&D Leadership & Systems

Product Development & Commercialization

R&D Leadership & Systems

Bring experienced R&D leadership into the business without necessarily making a full-time hire.

Fractional or interim leadership, R&D process design, team and lab development, technical systems, prioritization, and improving how innovation gets done.

Explore R&D Leadership

Product Development

How I Can Help

  • Develop and refine commercially viable formulations
  • Identify and evaluate co-manufacturing partners
  • Support labeling and regulatory readiness
  • Source ingredients and raw materials
  • Lead scale-up, plant trials, and commercialization

Product Categories I Know

  • Seasonings
  • Salty snacks
  • Roasted nuts
  • Cookies and Crackers
  • Processed Meats

Sensory & Consumer Testing

How I Can Help

  • Identify the right sensory or consumer test for the business question
  • Design test protocols, questionnaires, and evaluation plans
  • Select and manage qualified outside testing partners
  • Oversee testing to ensure sound execution
  • Interpret results and turn findings into clear product decisions
  • Build or strengthen in-house sensory programs and panels
  • Create practical, low-cost tools for more objective and repeatable product evaluation

Past Successes

  • Built, executed and analyzed consumer testing for 4 years at Frito-Lay, which did their own testing at that time
  • Supported packaging development with qualitative consumer research and product-use testing.
  • Took over Pizza Hut's Sensory program as interim head after their last scientist left the company.  Recruited and trained replacement. 
  • Built a consumer-testing program at Lance that enabled national-scale studies for under $1,500 per test
  • Recruited and trained a Sensory scientist at Lance, creating the department
  • Stood up signal detection difference tests at LifeSpice
  • Designed and analyzed DOEs to make plant trials more efficient and informative.

R&D Leadership

How I Can Help

  • Provide fractional or interim leadership for R&D and innovation teams
  • Assess organizational needs and identify process, staffing, and capability gaps
  • Build or rebuild R&D teams, labs, and development processes
  • Mentor new R&D leaders and strengthen management capability
  • Lead major technical initiatives, including formula-management and workflow systems
  • Put systems in place so R&D can scale with the business
  • Guide the practical adoption of AI and digital tools
  • Stabilize and improve underperforming R&D organizations
  • Prepare founder-led R&D organizations for ownership transition or sale by reducing dependence on the owner and building repeatable technical processes.

Past Successes

  • Scaled an R&D organization as the business grew from roughly $10M to $70M.
  • Built the R&D workflow from sales intake through formulation, regulatory review, sampling, feedback, and commercialization
  • Led and expanded an R&D organization from four to 14 people.  
  • Implemented multiple generations of formula-management and R&D workflow systems
  • Identified approximately $5M in R&D spending that could be better allocated
  • Built new laboratory, sensory, regulatory, and development capabilities
  • Accelerated the pace of development from one product per year to 7 products in my first year, generating more than $18M in new business.  
  • Delivered the products in live packaging film months ahead of the usual schedule to help Sales sell to store customers.
  • Over the next four years this company would come to have six developers, a Sensory department, launching dozens of new products through a formal stage gate process.
  • Helped introduce AI-enabled R&D workflows into an established organization

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