Are you curious about careers in science?

Hi, I'm Olivia.

And today I'm here with Jade Heslip.

Jade, can you tell me where we are and what you do?

I'm the R&D technical manager here at Jiffy Mixes at Chelsea Milling Company in Chelsea, Michigan.

What happens here at the Jiffy Plant?

Well we make all sorts of food products, we do both retail and food service under the Jiffy name.

We'r best known for our corn muffins, but we also make brownies biscuits, all sorts of products.

What does R&D mean?

R&D stands for Research and Development.

So within that space, this is where a lot of the ideas and innovation come from.

When you go to the grocery store and you see new products, it started out in R&D.

This is our sensory booths.

You can see behind me there's a few windows here where we test our products.

Are you allowed to taste the products in the lab?

Definitely.

So that's actually a requirement of our role.

We're tasting because we're learning.

Do you want to be my taste tester today?

Yes, I've been waiting.

I like to say we eat for work, not for fun, but that's part of the job here, understandin how things interact and taste.

How is STEM involved in your work?

Every day I'm either looking and doing some sort of calculation formulation work trying to figure out the math, or we might be going out and thinking about physics and how things flow and packaging.

I use it every day.

Now that you've tasted the muffins, let's test making the muffins.

Okay.

How did you become interested in research and development?

So I have a background in chemistry and I was lucky enough to have an internship while I was in college where I worked in research and development, but not in food.

You're mixin skills are excellent.

Thank you.

While I was there, I just, I loved the troubleshooting.

Research and development is a really unique role where we are problem solvers.

Alright, perfect.

Now that they're all full they're ready to go in the oven.

Alright.

Whether it's working fo a customer or for the company.

And one of the benefits of being in the food industry is you can taste everything you're working on.

I had a great mix of food, science, and fun at Jiffy with Jade Heslip.

Explore your possibilities.