Ingredient Characterization Intern

Based in Berkeley, CA, UPSIDE Foods grows meat, poultry, and seafood directly from animal cells.  These products are not vegan or vegetarian—they are delicious meat, made without the need to raise and slaughter billions of animals. UPSIDE Foods recently became the first company in the world to receive the US FDA greenlight for cultivated meat, and UPSIDE’s cultivated chicken will be available to consumers following USDA inspection and label approval.

Founded as the world’s first cultivated meat company in 2015, UPSIDE Foods (formerly Memphis Meats) has achieved numerous industry-defining milestones, including being the first company to produce multiple species of meat (beef, chicken, and duck). The company believes that people shouldn’t have to choose between the foods they love and a thriving planet, and is working to build a better food system with access to delicious, humane, and sustainable meat, poultry, and seafood. UPSIDE Foods has won various industry awards, including New York Times’ Good Tech Awards, FastCo’s Next Big Thing in Tech, and the Best and Brightest Companies to Work For in the Nation by the National Association for Business Resources. UPSIDE Foods has raised a total of $608 million, including from the Abu Dhabi Growth Fund (ADG), Baillie Gifford, Bill Gates, Cargill, John Doerr, John Mackey, Kimbal and Christiana Musk, Norwest, Richard Branson, Softbank, Temasek, Threshold, Tyson Foods, and others.

About this internship

Fibrous proteins like in animal skeletal muscles are hierarchical structures consisting of mostly long, flexible fiber bundles which in turn contribute to the texture, mouthfeel, and appearance of conventional whole muscle cuts. There are different non-traditional texturization techniques like electrospinning, jet spinning, or wet spinning that could impart texture throughout a product even if they don’t comprise the bulk of the end product. With this position we are expecting to explore new roads in texturization of biomass through architecturing the edible fibers to recapitulate the real meat-like structure. The focal point of intern position is application of wet spinning technique by practicing different active ingredients as complexation aids, including plant-based proteins and polysaccharides, in combination with cultivated meat. Creating edible fiber bundles from these spinning methods will help alternative meats reach sensory parity with conventional meats by improving product texture, mouthfeel, and appearance.

Responsibilities include

• Process parameters for wet spinning technology should be optimized; this would entail spinneret hole size, flow rate speed, and type of coagulation bath solution
• Optimization of bio-complex formation process through selection of range of active ingredients
• Measuring the texture quality (tensile strength) of edible fibers formed through wet spinning process

About you

• Master’s student or M.S. in Food Science, Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering, or a related field with essential knowledge of plant based proteins/polysaccharides is a plus
• Exhibit exceptional skills for bench-top experimental work and use of analytical instrumentation
• Ability in application of process optimization softwares like DOE, RSM, MATLAB, etc
• Ability to present findings to peers and leader of functional department and good external technical communication, experience writing technical papers a plus
• Act as one team and comfortable interacting with peers
• Good basic oral and written communication abilities

Who you’ll work with

• This role will report into the Sr. Scientist, RMC within the Food R&D team.
• This role will most frequently interact within different groups in our Food R&D team