About Us

The National Food Lab, The NFL, is a consulting organization specializing in transforming inspiration and experience into innovative food and beverage development. We got our start in 1976 in Berkeley, California as the Technical Service Corporation (Tech S). In 1985 we were renamed The National Food Laboratory, Inc. and relocated to Dublin, CA. The Dublin facility was the research and development headquarters of the Foremost-McKesson Corporation so it was a great location for our company. At that time, we were one of the few buildings on Dublin Boulevard and cows still grazed down the block from us!

In the summer of 2008, due to significant growth and an expansion of our services, we moved just six miles down the road to Livermore, CA. With beautiful views of the nearby vineyards The NFL houses its business in two new state-of-the-art facilities – a Technology Center and an Innovation Center. Linked by environmentally-friendly vehicles each location serves as a Center of Excellence for the different facets of work that we perform to bring complete solutions across the product lifecycle.

On March 30, 2010, The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) sold The NFL to Safe Foods International Holdings, LLC (SFI), a small group of notable, individual investors who have a passion for food, its future and all the issues the food industry faces as it becomes more global. This provides The NFL with an engine to accelerate growth while maintaining the strong links we’ve have always had with the GMA. On August 31, 2010, The NFL converted from a C Corporation (Inc) to a Limited Liability Company (LLC). The NFL’s employees, name, and location remain unchanged.

The NFL provides the broadest range of resources to the food and beverage industry, integrating services from marketing, new product strategy, product development, commercialization, consumer insights and sensory evaluation to shelf life evaluations, pilot plant trials and food safety and quality assurance testing. We believe we make our very busy clients’ lives just a little bit easier with solutions that let them launch new products faster and make protecting existing brands easier, quicker and worry free.

We think our new tagline “where art meets science” truly describes the work we do, combining creativity with technical excellence. When you visit The NFL, we hope that you find an atmosphere of enthusiasm and creativity; a place where we like to have some fun when we work at the serious business of marketing a new product, commercializing a process or developing a food safety strategy. Come on by and we’ll show you around.