Jennifer Kimmel
Head of R&D - Americas

With 20+ years in the food industry across finished products and ingredients, Jen leads a team of scientists and engineers at Roquette dedicated to customer-centric innovation. By mastering ingredient functionality at the structural level, her team seamlessly integrates process development, advanced characterization, and application performance—delivering breakthrough innovations that solve complex customer challenges and set new benchmarks for consumer excellence.
Prior to Roquette, Jen served as Ingredient Technology Manager at Glanbia Performance Nutrition and as Principal Protein Scientist at Kraft Foods, where she pioneered protein innovation strategies for global brands.

As protein innovation becomes increasingly digital, the role of human expertise becomes even more critical. This session explores how predictive tools, application insight, and formulation experience come together to design plant-based proteins with targeted functional performance. We’ll share how a human-guided, design-led approach accelerates development while staying grounded in real-world manufacturing and product requirements.

Sarita Chauhan
Senior Biotechnologist

Sarita Chauhan, PhD, MBA, is a Senior Biotechnologist at GEA Systems North America with expertise in microbiology, precision fermentation, and cell culture. By combining scientific innovations with industrial scale efficiencies, she has developed and optimized many bioprocesses for food, agriculture, pharmaceutical, and chemical industries. Sarita is passionate about addressing food security challenges and currently works on advancing sustainable end-to-end bioproduction equipment and technologies for scaling to pilot and manufacture. Her problem-solving mindset and collaborative approach are the key drivers in her ability to translate complex bioprocess problems into practical, high-impact solutions. Outside of work Sarita enjoys hiking and various crafts which inspire creativity and fresh perspectives.

The end-to-end biomanufacturing of food protein products, derived from microbial precision fermentations and plant-based processes poses challenges when transitioning from laboratory to commercial scale. Efficient mixing of media components, feeds and formulations are essential for successful manufacturing of quality products. At scale, sterile media filtration and size-based or molecular-weight based separations for proteins products are equally important and must be tested at pilot scale. In this presentation, GEA technologies and equipment for high shear mixing and high-pressure homogenization illustrate how their implementation enables critical steps to prepare liquids for sterile membrane filtrations and membrane-based separations by improving flux and lowering filtration pressure.

Katie Whalen
Open Innovation Manager

Dr. Katie Whalen is a medicinal chemist and microbiologist by training, but made the leap to the Food & Ingredients space a decade ago. Always holding positions related to Innovation – she is currently a manager in Ferrero’s Open Innovation group, where she scouts for novel food and ag technologies, and carries out proof-of-concept trials to turn good ideas into a better reality.

Ferrero, an Italian family company since 1946, is one of the world's largest sweet-packaged food companies with over 35 iconic brands known globally. The company operates worldwide with over 50,000 employees. Ferrero is innovating the future of confection with their new Chicago research and development lab. Recent years have seen expansion into high-protein snacking with the acquisition of Power Crunch, as well as the acquisition of WK Kellogg Co, including the manufacturing, marketing, and distribution of WK Kellogg Co’s iconic portfolio of breakfast cereals.
Learn more from a senior R&D leader on the growing importance of protein in sweet-packaged food, particularly plant proteins.

Minghong Yang
Senior Scientist

Minghong is a Senior Scientist at Amano Enzyme USA, with seven years of experience developing enzymes for food and beverage applications. Much of her recent work focuses on improving the qualities of plant-based proteins and beverages using innovative enzyme solutions. She enjoys taking complex enzyme science and turning it into practical tools that help create better, more enjoyable products.

Andrew Zumbusch
Senior Research Scientist and Product Specialist

Andrew Zumbusch is a Senior Research Scientist and Product Specialist at Cargill. He holds a master’s degree in food science, and an undergraduate degree in physiology, both from the University of Minnesota. His primary research area is the extraction and functionalization of plant proteins, with a primary focus on pea protein. As a product specialist, he communicates with Cargill customers on the breath of Cargill’s plant protein portfolio and how they can be utilized in application.

Zhixin Wang
Upstream Research Manager

Zhixin Wang, Ph.D., is the Food Technology Research Manager for North America (Canada, USA, Mexico) at Puratos, leading upstream research to identify and develop cutting‑edge technologies that advance innovation in bakery, patisserie, and chocolate. She spearheads technology scouting, external partnerships, and collaborations with universities, startups, and suppliers across North America, supporting strategic formulation development and stage‑gate innovation projects. Her work focuses on leveraging emerging ingredients, processing technologies, and protein systems to shape the future of sustainable and consumer‑driven food solutions.

Todd Palcic
President & CEO

Todd Palcic has been at the nexus of technology and international business since he co-founded his first company at the age of 21 in college. He went on to start, grow and sometimes fund, successful and less successful tech companies in the fields of spectroscopy, robotics, chromatography, extraction and medical devices. He now serves as CEO of Thar Process, a contract R&D to tolling operation that also builds cutting-edge and sustainable extraction and purification solutions for the food, nutriceutical, and chemical markets.

Defatting is a critical process in food production and is critical to a more balanced, plant protein future because it improves product stability, enhances the functional properties of proteins, concentrates desired nutrients, and can remove undesirable flavors or toxins.  Working with supercritical CO2 defatting can also sterilize both the extracts and especially the raffinate or spent material.  It also dries the feed material while escaping the extract as a gas before it turns back into a liquid as fully recycled solvent.

Jenni Harrington
Director of Technology & Innovation

Jenni Harrington – Director of Technology &Innovation for Value-added products in North America. Jenni has been almost 20 years with Buhler. Jenni has B.S. Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota and B.S. Food Technology & Engineering from National University of Food Technologies, Kyiv, Ukraine.

Keith M Bromley
Product Team Lead

Keith Bromley is Product Team Lead at Plantible Foods, developing applications for Rubi Protein™ (RuBisCO) derived from duckweed. He earned a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Bristol creating novel bioinorganic nanocomposites, followed by postdoctoral research at USC and the University of Edinburgh focused on protein self-assembly, biomineralization, and interfacial phenomena. During his time in academia, he also worked on gluten-free baking and confectionery systems in academic-industrial collaborations. Keith later transitioned into industry, working on alternative proteins at Beyond Meat before joining Plantible Foods to advance sustainable plant protein innovation.

Michael Sigel
CEO

Michael Sigel is a seasoned food industry executive and the CEO of SCO2, where he leads the commercialization of NEXTRACT™, a patented, breakthrough, supercritical CO₂ extraction platform. His work helps global food and beverage companies unlock greater value from existing raw materials, improve margins, reduce ingredient volatility, and build more resilient, future-ready supply chains. Examples include turning spent coffee grounds into a cocoa powder alternative and purifying plant proteins by removing oils and off-colors, off-flavors and odors from plant proteins at industrial scale. 

Plant proteins hold enormous potential, yet off-colors, residual fats, and undesirable flavors often limit their performance in food and beverage applications. This presentation introduces a novel approach to “cleaning” plant proteins using NEXTRACT™, an advanced supercritical CO₂–based purification platform. By selectively removing lipids, odor compounds, and color bodies without harsh chemicals or extensive downstream processing, the technology enables the production of more neutral, functional plant protein ingredients.

Trials conducted on pea protein isolate curd will be presented as a proof-of-concept for NEXTRACT's ability to clean and refine plant proteins.

Canan Ozer
Associate Scientist

Canan Ozer is an Associate Scientist on Ingredion’s Protein Fortification Team. Since joining in 2016, she has developed plant‑protein solutions for bakery, snack, alternative dairy, beverage, and confectionery applications. Earlier in her career, she gained extensive experience working with plant‑based flours and protein concentrates, applying them across various food systems to enhance nutritional value and functionality. Currently, she supports new product launches with specialized pea‑protein ingredients and plays an active role in post‑launch qualification processes. Canan also focuses on evaluating emerging protein technologies and developing customized plant‑protein solutions tailored to specific application needs. In addition, she serves as a technical lead, providing strong, hands‑on customer support to deliver customer‑centric ingredient and formulation solutions.

Tiantian Lin
Research Associate

Dr. Tiantian Lin is a Research Associate in Global Innovation, Advanced Research and Chemistry Team at Ingredion, specializing in protein chemistry and modification. She leads and supports research on plant protein innovation to advance texture, functionality, sustainability, and health-forward ingredient solutions. Before joining Ingredion, Dr. Lin was a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Food Science at Cornell University, where she focused on protein encapsulation and modification of dairy proteins and bioactives. She earned her Ph.D. in Food Science and Technology from Virginia Tech, studying how processing affects the structure, composition, and functional properties of dry beans, with an emphasis on protein functionality and dietary fiber–mediated health benefits.

Consumers—especially younger generations—are increasingly turning to plant‑based proteins for health and sustainability reasons. However, creating products that meet these evolving expectations requires selecting the right protein ingredients and leveraging processing approaches that enhance functionality. This talk will outline practical strategies for matching pea protein ingredients with application needs, highlighting how processing approaches influence functionality and performance. Using examples such as tortillas, cold‑pressed bars, and high‑moisture beverages, the talk will focus on actionable insights to help industry teams develop better, more reliable plant‑protein solutions.

Jen Mayer
Director of Crop Stewardship

Jen leads the Crop Stewardship team at The Land Institute, focused on policy, market, and food science research aimed at guiding and ensuring the adoption and scaling of perennial grains. She is a senior food systems and agricultural professional with experience designing and managing food systems development programs in Africa and founder of an innovative food start-up in Zimbabwe developing, promoting and scaling climate-smart products.

Evan Craine
Research Scientist II

Evan’s work in perennial grain food science and food functionality supports The Land Institute’s priority to make perennial grains edible, nutritious, and viable within supply chains to support the transition of these emerging crops from the research station to farms and people’s plates. He received his PhD in Crop Science from Washington State University while working to improve end-use quality in quinoa and malting barley. Evan recently contributed a chapter on perennial grains as plant protein sources to the book "Plant Proteins: Farm to Table". He lives in Pullman, WA. 

At The Land Institute, we’re transforming agriculture to secure a sustainable future for all. We develop diverse, perennial crops and innovate from the ground up to feed humanity and repair our planet. This presentation will highlight the potential of Kernza perennial grain and perennial Baki bean as sustainable sources of plant protein. From the field to food system, we will describe the major constraints these two plant protein sources seek to address. Presenters will share the current status of development, along with a clear characterization of the major challenges and opportunities. This presentation will reveal how partnership and collaboration can accelerate development and scale the positive impact of perennial grains for people and the planet. 

Visit to the Buhler Food Application Center.

Participants will learn about latest developments in industrial processing, from de-hulling and milling to extrusion, dehydration and heat treatment. These methods will be discussed in the context of different raw material, final products and the unique attributes which make certain processes more suitable based on the target application. 

Join us for an interactive demonstration workshop featuring the NETZSCH LabCompactPlus, a versatile processing platform designed for innovative food applications. This session will showcase how the modular system supports protein shifting, enabling the enrichment and functional optimization of plant-based raw materials. Participants will gain hands-on insights into key process steps such as fine grinding, classification, and targeted fractionation—critical for developing high-quality plant-based products with improved nutritional profiles and sensory performance. Our experts will guide you through practical use cases, highlighting how the NETZSCH LabCompactPlus ensures easy operation, efficient product separation, and process development from laboratory to production. Whether you are exploring plant proteins, or novel food concepts, this workshop offers an excellent opportunity to deepen your technical knowledge and experience NETZSCH technology in action.

CPM|Crown is a global leader and innovator offering custom process engineering, equipment and piloting for specialty markets — including plant-based proteins.

Within their headquarters is the only facility of its kind in the world - Crown’s Innovation Center - a full-scale pilot plant, analytical lab and training facility that equips customers to develop and test product and process feasibility, run benchtop scale to custom processing, commercialize and train staff. By providing real-world capabilities in a confidential, controlled environment, Crown enables customers to bring new products to market faster and more sustainably with less risk. Crown’s Lifecycle360TM program is a suite of single-source support services that helps customers optimize their operations.