By Katrina Hageman
With a focus on innovation and ideation, Kate Gilbert has dedicated her College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Innovation and Entrepreneurship Faculty Fellows (IEFF) project to enhance FSHN 4120 Food Product Development, a three-credit capstone course for food science and culinary food science seniors. The course challenges students to develop a new food product using the knowledge they have gained from prerequisite courses.
Gilbert, associate teaching professor of food science and human nutrition, has taught FSHN 4120 for nine years.
In prior years, students could create any food product they wanted. Gilbert soon realized this led to a few roadblocks including available equipment capabilities and the accessibility of ingredients.
“The biggest feasibility restriction was class time,” Gilbert said. “Often a project idea seemed like it would fit but ended up spilling well over the seven hours of class time per week, which was a strain on students and faculty.”
“I also had to consider if it was realistic for teams to develop any food item they wanted,” Gilbert said. “Most graduates will go and work for a food company that produces a certain type of food and will be asked to develop a new version of that food type.”
Taking the restrictions into consideration, Gilbert used her involvement in IEFF to restructure and prepare for transitions in the spring 2025 class.
“For projects to fit in with the allotted class time and for students to have enough time to do the work of product development, either the ideation had to be limited, or the scope of the development project had to be significantly cut,” she said.
Gilbert decided to limit the ideation and have students focus on muffins for the spring 2025 semester. She considered how quickly and efficiently teams could make and evaluate product iterations, having a product type that could still foster creativity and setting up a manageable project framework for students.
Project in Action
Twenty students, split into five teams, took FSHN 4120 last semester.
Each student started by developing their own muffin ideas and presented their concepts to the class. Voting chose the top five ideas. Then students whose projects did not get picked ranked their top choices to generate teams, which was a process update that allowed students to have more ownership in their projects.
This process fostered more team collaboration and collective problem-solving to move projects forward as a cohort, rather than as individual teams. It also allowed students the time to utilize the other benefits of the capstone course that is built to be as real world as possible.
“Unlike most classes, FSHN 4120 requires each team member to rotate into the team leader role,” said Giuliana Esposito, who took the class last spring before graduating with her food science degree. “A key takeaway was the importance of flexibility and perspective when working in teams. Just as in life, even when the goal is shared, each team may take a different path to achieve it, and that difference in approach is not only acceptable but often beneficial.”
To enhance their learning experience, each team is paired with an Iowa State food science alum who works in the industry. These alums volunteer their time to make FSHN 4120 a great experience.
“The mentors consistently offered valuable insights, asked questions and suggested numerous potential solutions during the product development process, which significantly enhanced my learning experience,” Esposito said. “Overall, their guidance and expertise made the class feel like working alongside real colleagues in the field, and they taught me new ways to approach challenges even when our team struggled to find solutions.”
Students who completed this course are now working full-time in the industry, bringing the valuable lessons learned with them.
“The knowledge and experiences I gained in this class now directly apply to my daily work, giving me confidence, even as a recent graduate, that I am capable of excelling in my role,” said Esposito, who now works as a research and development scientist at Wells Enterprises, Inc. “The class itself provided a comprehensive overview of the entire product development process within the food industry, from initial ideation to creating bench-top samples, and ultimately scaling recipes for large-scale production.”
The future is bright for FSHN 4120, especially with Gilbert’s guidance and investment toward seeing the class succeed.
“Now that I have had one semester of limited category ideation, I can build off of it moving forward,” Gilbert said. “I plan to update the lab manual with changes made to the course, as well as work on the next product category that will allow for quick iteration testing while still allowing for creativity and innovation.”