Angelica Iobbi - The Flavor of Change
- Vanessa Rios de Souza
- 12 minutes ago
- 15 min read
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Angelica Iobbi is the Sensory Manager at Lactalis USA. She holds a PhD in Food Science and Technology from Oregon State University, where she specialized in wine sensory and flavor chemistry. Since January 2023, Angelica has been leading the sensory department at Lactalis USA, bringing her expertise in sensory evaluation, consumer research, and linking sensory and chemistry data to the forefront. Outside of her professional life, Angelica enjoys drinking wine, going for long walks, and practicing pilates.
Transcript (Semi-automated, forgive typos!)
Vanessa: Welcome to the show, Angelica
Angelica: Thank you, Vanessa, for the introduction. We were just saying we are both Brazilians. We speak Portuguese, but we are doing the podcast in English. That's funny. Yeah. But it's such a pleasure to be here today. Thank you very much.
Vanessa: Thank you. Exactly. Yeah, this is a very special exactly because of that Angelic and I actually share a common background, right. We are both from Brazil and well, if I'm not mistaken, we first met through IFT at the.
Angelica: Conference last year, yeah, yeah.
Vanessa: So it's actually, it's truly a pleasure to have you here today. So thanks for joining us. Well, let's kick off with your story as usual. So, can you share your journey into the world of sensory and consumer science? Specifically, what first drew you to the field? Was there a specific experience, maybe during your studies or early career, that pulled you in this direction?
Angelica: Yes. So since I was a child, actually, it's always like those children stories. Like my mom, she would bake a lot. She would, you know, bake cakes and sell cakes. She would make wedding cakes, birthday cakes, all that stuff. Yeah, that was very cool. And I was always interested, you know, like by the science behind it, you know, like, oh, OK. She she made it the better and like, put it in the open and it comes out as a cake. So what are the transformations that happened? And, you know, growing up, I wanted to be a nutritionist because that was the field that I was, that I knew, you know, that I that was most related to food science. But my mom saw technical course at Sinai in Brazil. That's so funny because you, you know what Sinai is? It's this technical school. And she told me like, oh, why don't you take this course? It was food technician course and, and she told me, oh, I think it's similar to nutrition, so you should take it and see if you enjoy before going to college. And I was like, Oh yeah, that's such a good idea. And I took the test, passed it and enrolled. And, you know, it was completely different. It was like more related to the food industry and I loved it. And from there, I remember I had an instructor who we had like a food quality class and we did some sensory evaluation. And she said that she was a, she had a food engineer background. And she said that in college there was a class called sensory evaluation of food. So that sparked an interest at me, right? I was like, oh, like, oh, you can do this, like taste food and like measure in ice or something like that. That's pretty cool. And then when I started college, I have a bachelor's in food science from University of Sao Paulo. And, you know, like in the food science degree, you had the sensory evaluation course. I took it, of course, it was a minatory class and I loved it. And from there, you know, I knew that I wanted to be a sensory scientist. I came to the US and when the opportunity come came to do internships, I looked for opportunities related to sensory evaluation and alcoholic beverages because at the time, I, I that was also a second interest that I had. And yeah, I, I believe that's going to push you to the next question online. But yeah, that's my my love story about sensory evaluation.
Vanessa: That's amazing. Yeah. Thanks for sharing. And indeed, yeah, I would like to dive a little bit into one of your research projects and your work on tropical aroma perception in wine has caught my attention. So I was wondering if you could walk us through the key discoveries and the impact on the wine industry?
Angelica: Yeah. So my research, I did it as you mentioned in my intro at Oregon State University in the Food Science and Technology department under the supervision of Doctor Elizabeth Tomasino. And my research focused on investigating the causes of tropical fruit aroma in white wines. So when we refer to tropical fruit aroma in white wine, we are really talking about passion fruit, guava and the citrus aromas. And those aromas in white wines are caused by variotal tiles. And these variotal tiles, they are really common in Sauvignon Blanc wines. They are present in higher concentrations, but you know, these are very potent compounds at the same time as they are present in the wine in nanogram per liter like parts per trillion. But they they display a very, very strong aroma in the wine. And I was looking into other aroma families that could cause this tropical fruit aroma in other wine varietals as well. Because so far in the literature tropical fruit aroma is only related to varietal tiles. So my research had a focus on esters, specifically concentrations from the Chardonnay wine and through I can give you more detail maybe in later questions, But through aroma reconstitution studies, you know, we spike aromas in the wine, we found that only when you have a higher concentration of esters, only those of tiles, sorry, only those styles, they have more green, grassy, earthy aroma. But when you have tiles together, then you have the tropical fruit aroma. So that was a discovery because like I said, tropical fruit aromas was only related to volatile tiles. And we also found the combinations that in part only Esther is in part tropical fruit aroma. So that was a very interesting result. You know, it does have an impact in the wine industry because wine makers once they know what compounds are causing specific aromas in wine, they can manipulate the wine making or grape growing conditions to increase the concentrations of these compounds in the final wine. So it was a very interesting.
Vanessa: Result. Yeah, no, that's very cool. You actually covered a little bit my follow up question because it's very interesting that you really worked into this linking between chemistry and sensory, right? And it's if you want, as you said, if you want to improve certain aspects of your product, sometimes it comes down to understand the chemistry behind and how to manipulate that, right? Yeah.
Angelica: And yeah, like my, this research really had both aspects, right? Chemistry and sensory and how they connect, right, and how they correlate to each other. And that was very important to my findings because that was the only way to find aroma causation. As you may know, when you, when you do correlation statistics, it correlation doesn't mean causation, right? So we can do that. That's a way, right, of doing it. You measure volatile compounds in the wine with a gas chromatograph and then you do sensory evaluation and through statistical methods you can correlate. But if you really want to find causation and you know like that's a validation, right to the correlations, we do specific process and why? Because it's a liquid matrix, right? You can find ways of removing the aromas of it. So we we de aromatize the wine and add the aromas back in concentrations that are normally present in wine. And you can make the treatments, right. So you can add esters, you can spike higher esters, lower esters, higher thyles, and you can do it for several volatile aroma families and subject to those treatments to sensory descriptive analysis or you know, like you choose the method that you want to use and then you can find. So that's one of the methods that we used in my study and that was really crucial to my findings. And also from a learning perspective, skills. It really helped me.
Vanessa: Yeah, that's very cool. So you can really manipulate your wine.
Angelica: Yeah, Well, yeah, not for sale. Let me be clear. This is just, this was research wine, and a lot of people would ask me that. Oh, so can you add compounds to wines like. Yeah. So we call the wine wine. No, it has the the flavors have to come from fermentation and you know like.
Vanessa: Not manipulate.
Angelica: The process itself can be manipulated, but to not by adding.
Vanessa: OK, I see. Interesting. Oh, that's.
Angelica: Very cool, yeah.
Vanessa: Nice. Well, now from what we talked before, I understand that after some time following the academic path, obviously you did your PhD, you ended up not continuing right in the academia, so you made a shift to industry and that's a position many of our listeners might be curious about. I went through this quite interesting, and my question is what prompt you to leave academia? Was there a specific moment or realization that pushed you toward the industry?
Angelica: Yeah. So for me, since the, the beginning, you know, I, I did a PHDI wanted to come to the US because, you know, it's I wanted to live in a country that speaks English. I don't, don't ask me why. Since I was started studying English when I was 13 years old, I had this dream and OK, US was the, the country of choice. So when I finished my undergrad in Brazil, I, I didn't feel ready, you know, to go to the industry. I was like, oh, that's it. Like now I go get a job in the industry and I, I don't feel ready. I don't feel ready. So, but I knew I wanted to, to be there in the industry at some point. And when I did my PhD, my professor, Doctor Tomasino, she was great know at putting us in situations that really challenged us beyond, you know, the academic field. So she always encouraged, encouraged us to do like leadership, volunteer for IFT, for example, in the LEAD and the sensory and consumer Sciences division. You know, we would have meetings, we would take the time and have meetings with us to, you know, prepare for interviews, job interviews and things like that. So, you know, throughout academia, I was preparing myself to be in the industry because that's what I wanted, unlike Brazil. And again, I'm so glad that you and I share this background. You can understand me. If you do a PhD in Brazil, most likely you're going to be a professor, right? Or you're going to have a hard time finding jobs because the industry doesn't value like your like academic skills, right? But that's not, that's not the case here. Or at least I didn't feel like it was when I was, you know, on my path of like finishing the PhD and talking about transitioning to academia. But overall, like, I, I thought I, I always thought I had the skills for it. I, you know, and I wanted to be a manager. Like I knew that I, you know, like, I like working team. I like that that, you know, like cross function, cross functional team environment, you know, where you rely on someone's from different teams, like different people from different teams. The project life cycles are faster. You know, you're seeing the results in front of you. I always liked that, but I also love academia. I just finished the pop submitting like writing a paper. I'm still writing my papers with Elizabeth. So you know, I'm still in academia supporting some stuff. But I, I do love the industry and I think I will stay hopefully for life, you know?
Vanessa: Interesting.
Angelica: Yeah, it seems.
Vanessa: Like you always knew the path that you wanted to go through. But yeah.
Angelica: Very very like objective oriented.
Vanessa: That's cool. Yeah. I also had this transition as you, but in my ways, I always thought that I would be in academia forever. I always had that, yeah.
Angelica: You have this much a long path in academia.
Vanessa: Yeah, yeah, you can always change, right and.
Angelica: Shift, Yeah, yeah. And then. Awesome.
Vanessa: Yeah. And from your perspective, how did you, I mean, how did your PhD prepare you for this new path, for this transition or other certain skills or experience from your academic background that have been especially helpful in the industry?
Angelica: So, and this is a very interesting question because I remember, you know, I always, I always thought that a PhD would help me like in the industry. That's crazy. I know. And I remember when I was in the interview actually for like that is one person asked me. So she challenged me with this question. You know, I was like, oh, like, yes, I'm ready to answer it. From, I don't know, knowledge standpoint, doing a PhD really allowed me to like thoroughly understand the sensory evaluation, you know, other methodologies, the statistics behind it. You know, I, I did, I take, I took a minor in statistics while in academia. So that really helped me like the best practices, everything you know, that you need the resources needed to run a sensory program. I learned that in in academia and from a soft skills standpoint, you know, I gained a lot of resilience, you know, patience, critical thinking. I learned that to manage my time. You know, my professor at the same time that she was very supportive. She was very hands off. She would allow us to take decisions. It was, I wasn't doing a project that, you know, like I, you know, I, I could make the choices. It wasn't, you know, like a lot of things was up to me. So, you know, I, I felt that that really helped me, but I don't know why I find that pH DS are like self learner folks. We are creative, right? Because we always find the solutions to things. We are resourceful. We can be teachers, right, presenters because we have to present our work. And at least in my experience, I, I was challenged to present to folks in the industry, in academia. So that really like trained me in a different way. And we have leadership abilities. So I do think that doing a PhD helped me to, you know, granted a job in the industry and the skills that I gained there gained there definitely I can put in practice. Yeah, here, of course.
Vanessa: Can be like anymore and let's move a little bit the topic and talk about what you're doing today and more innovation field. So in your current role in the dairy industry, what kind of innovation are you focused on? Is it more about like product innovation, process innovation? Could you talk a little bit about that?
Angelica: So in our sensory program, we work a lot with the the quality team, you know, like we have our major products and we, we look at our products with a group of expert panels to check consistency, you know, of those major products. So it's aligned with the quality team. So that's one the major the bulk of the work that we currently do. But on the side me and my team with the help of our Canadian team in Lake Tallis, Canada, we are building the R&D sensory. So the R&D sensory you know, basically is to support the sensory and marketing teams. We, we use a lot of external partners right at the censoring consumer sciences agencies for preference tasks and things like that. But moving forward, I think you know, like it's small steps, we will start internalizing some of those projects, you know, like industry, you know like cutting costs and all those things like that are advantages of internalizing. And you know, but right now we support R&D teaming, like new product development, recipe or process changes, also innovation, you know, we can do consumer testing with innovation projects. But you know, like normally so far it's like smaller projects, you know, when marketing doesn't have the budgets to resource externally, we can do it internally today. So yeah, it's, it's a full program, but it will grow. We just opened our culinary and sensory institute. So culinary in a dairy company is something huge because you know, most of the dairy products, you will taste it in a recipe like a shredded cheese will be, you know, like in pizza or. Nachos, you know that stuff so you don't you don't only taste it as is, you know and it's need form, but in application, right how that product performs in application. So culinary is huge for us and also the sensory aligned with sensory for testing. So yeah, it's definitely everybody values sensory in like Lactalis, you know, globally. So that's that's awesome. I feel very fortunate about this opportunity. So, you know, we are still a little limited, I guess on the AI world, but we do some things. So right now we use, we use reged, you know, as ours data collection software and they have the open text summary, you know, by AI. So, you know, for open questions on liking and dislikes and things like that, that summary has helped us. I also use Copilot or ChatGPT, you know, to ask everyday questions, you know, things like reviewing emails or asking general questions, you know, sometimes summarizing big chunks of text or brainstorming ideas. So when we opened the building, I knew I had to create a sensory activity and you know, that were people in the company from different themes, including our leadership team.
Vanessa: And are digital tools or AI playing a role in your work? Have you had the chance to explore or integrate AI tools to support product development or consumer research?
Angelica: That was kind of like, OK, so how am I going to provide one fits all activity? So I asked the copilot, you know, I gave the prompt and they gave me an idea. What else? We did a consumer test once with kids and you know, like it was a chocolate beverage and we wanted the kids to grade on a jar scale thickness. But like 5 year old, 7 year old kids don't understand that term, right? Do you think that this product is thick or creamy enough? So I asked the copilot at the time to help me explain thickness to children and I wrote, I wrote here how it it like broke it down for me. Can I read it?
Vanessa: Yeah, of course.
Angelica: So like in explaining thickness to a 5 to 7 year old. So imagine when you drink a milkshake, it feels smooth and soft in your mouth, like it's gently covering your tongue. That's what we call thickness. It's not too watery but just right making the drink feel rich and yummy when you taste it. I found it so awesome. Like to explain, you know, in a questioner what it is for, you know, like like a 7-8 year old. Yeah. So yes, things like that, you know, like how can I explain our one attribute or so those have been the uses. But we have a lot of historical data, sensory data that we would like to pick Wi-Fi Gora one day to see what we can do with it. You know, like some predictive modeling on consumer preference and things like that. But yeah, yeah, there are.
Vanessa: Plenty out there things are changing so fast right so you keep up and well yeah, we're almost at time so I I just want to ask you before we wrap this up and more broadly how do you see this AI technology influence in the future of sensory and consumer science, not specifically on what you apply nowadays, but what's your feeling on that?
Angelica: Yeah. Well, I think that, you know, sensory, I don't think it will be replaced. You know, some people say it will you create a new product? How are you going to like find out about how it tastes, the consumer preference, you know, with AI, you know, be like, how are you going to validate it? But I think AI will cut, you know, a few process out of the way, you know, with like a lot of data, you can make more conclusions. You you can have understanding like for R&D instead of having so many prototypes, you can cut it down, you know, if you have the knowledge. So I think it will make is there to make our lives easier. But sensory evaluation, I don't think it will ever be replaced. I hope not because otherwise I'm going to lose my job or transform my job, transform my job in anything, in something else. But yeah, that's how I see it. You know, facilitating understanding, breaking down in an easier manner. You know, like a consumer inside.
Vanessa: Yeah, yeah, exactly. More like speedy up things and the risking speeding up. Exactly. Well, unfortunately we are almost out of time. But before we wrap up, we always like to ask our guests to share a piece of advice or recommendation with our audience. So for someone new to sensory and consumer science, or even someone considering a career shift into this space, what advice or encouragement would you give?
Angelica: My major advice is to talk to people, you know, like people similar to you, you know, like that are looking for a similar opportunity or older people, you know, like find a mentor, you know, someone that you can rely on and that you, you really admire and go, you know, ask that that person, you know, like ask career advice. Yeah. And, you know, like work hard. You know, there's no secret. If you want some, if you want to be above and beyond, you have to perform at above and beyond, you know, so there's no way around it. And, you know, just be a good person, you know, help others, you know, like you help yourself when you help others.
Vanessa: Awesome. Thank you. Well, and lastly, what's the best way for people to connect with you, if they want to reach out? Is it by email or LinkedIn? We are going to be adding this to the podcast description.
Angelica: Yeah, my LinkedIn is the best way.
Vanessa: Great. Well, thank you so much for being with us today.
Angelica: Yeah. Thank you.
Vanessa: It's a real pleasure to hear your story and I'm sure our listeners will find it just as inspiring as we did, so thank you so much.
Angelica: Thank you, Vanessa. It was a great conversation. Thank you.
Vanessa: Thank you.
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