The Art and Science of Play

While I walked through a neighborhood toy store yesterday, I was reminded of how my young children learn about their world through playing. What looks like playing is actually a continuous process of creating and testing.

Here at The NFL, we are in the fortunate position to “play” like this as grown-ups. Not only do we learn more about the world around us, but our knowledge and our perfection of our skills grow as well. This benefits us as professionals and, more importantly, it benefits our clients. At our core, we are artists and scientists who enjoy working with food and beverages. In our personal lives, and at work, we do this play “for the love of the game” – because we’re really interested and curious about the world of food.

A couple of examples of this “play” come to mind:

The recent resurgence of slow cookers has been piquing my interest lately. I’ve watched several TV shows and read many magazines featuring slow cooker recipes. I finally took the plunge: I bought a slow cooker and made my first meal in it this week. I cooked a roast that I’ve made several times in the oven, and adapted it to cook in the slow cooker. After many weeks of following celebrity chefs’ musings on slow cookers and their benefits, I’m fairly convinced that the benefit is a time-saving one (which is huge for a busy parent!), not a taste one. The roast was fine, and my whole family ate it with few complaints. But, my husband did comment that it wasn’t as good as usual. I’ll definitely use the slow cooker again when our schedule calls for it, but I’m not sure that it’s earned a coveted spot on the kitchen counter.

This is indeed the “play” of a food marketer.

Here’s another example.

The NFL’s pilot plant just installed state-of-the-art retort capability with the addition of the Allpax Stretch 2402 multimode. With the new retort, our team can identify the optimal combination of processing parameters that will result in the highest quality product and maximum process efficiency. This is like a “Swiss Army Knife” of retorts. With the help of this equipment, our engineers are doing things they’ve never had the tools to do before. It’s a scientist’s dream to be able to ask questions, test, get data, change the test and repeat the process – learning all the way.

This translates to faster time-to-market for new products and potentially better sterilization solutions for products already on the market.

This is the “play” of a food process engineer.

So, just like we do here at The NFL, the next time you find yourself wondering about something that interests you, take the time to “play”. You may be surprised how much you’ll learn!