New Product Formulation
As a chef and baker with a long history of r&d, bench samples, scale-up, bakery production and bringing products to market, I have years of practical hands on experience creating formulations that work, repeatedly and successfully over time ~ delve deep on a project to learn the best, team with the best, for the best results.
SELECT CLIENTS
Client Services
New Product Formulations
with a focus on flavor, capturing weights, measures and directions for scale up, manufacturing and co-packer success. Vendor sourcing for both large scale production manufacturing and local café/bakery.
Business Owner “mindset”
Former food business owner with daily awareness of foodcost, waste, trainable menu items, scalability and customer accessibility.
Teamwork & Ideation
In manufacturing I spent six years as part of a team working with sales, accounting, the CEO and directly with clients responding to custom requests for new products. Ideation involved producing samples for strategy sessions, capturing new ideas and trends that consumers are ready to embrace.
Taste Test
Conducted anonymously for unbiased results, facilitate group discussion after opinions submitted to get the best consensus.
Food Safety
Years of compliance and collaboration with the Health Dept. to achieve a passing grade and uphold standards. Manager level ServSafe certification.
Troubleshooting
I have dubbed this food and recipe “archeology.” Learn the most you can about the history, the how and why of a formula to understand why it does what it does. Only then can you fix, improve or refresh a product when necessary!
Testimonials
“I call on Mani’s creativity and experience for work across the culinary spectrum: confection, savory and sweet baking, snacks, beverages, frozen, shelf-stable, cereals, entrées, special diet, etc.. A partial list of client companies includes Conagra, Dole Fresh, Kraft, Pepperidge Farm, Seeds of Change, Jamba Juice, Ben & Jerry’s, and Heinz.”
“We are excited to partner with Mani’s Test Kitchen to develop and refine our new drinking chocolate! As Numi celebrates its 20th anniversary, innovative tastes and opportunities are our priority and Mani has really come through on this new product.”
“Mani created a line of baked goods for our restaurant-his vegan baked donuts, aka faux-nuts and gluten free corn meal waffles sell out at brunch every weekend!”
“Mani’s Test Kitchen helped us create our organic, heirloom tomato pasta sauces. Mani has a knack for flavor and lots of ideas. He rocks.”
Recent Projects
Playa Viva
Who ~ Eco-resort, off the grid, yoga, beach, chill yet luxe vibe
What ~ Assess and improve communication, connection and experience in its three strongest elements: the kitchen, the guests and the perma-culture farm.
How ~ Mani spent a month cooking with the kitchen team, incorporating the yield of the amazing farm crew (including mangoes, coconuts, coffee, cacao, eggs, sesame seeds, tamarind, moringa, turmeric) and dining with the guests to ensure the farm-to-table experience match their desires and expectations.
Results ~ A report and assessment for the owners, practical recipes for the chefs, guest tested and approved, including sesame cacao cookies, tamarind (in everything from noodles de arroz, agua fresca and cocktail simple syrup), turmeric roasted yams, vegan banana coconut cake with cacao glaze, mango lime scones and coconut water hibiscus cocktails.
Just Desserts
Six years as head chef running the R & D dept. for this groundbreaking San Francisco bakery yielded new cakes, single pak cupcakes and bite size desserts (coffeecakes, fruit loaves, sticky buns) vegan innovations and contracts with Jamba Juice, Costco and Whole Foods.
Dave’s Gourmet
Dave had a hunch that people buy tomato sauce more often than hot sauce, and no one was making sauce from heirloom tomatoes. So he literally sent Mani into an organic farmer’s field to taste and assess the tomatoes with the goal of creating a flavorful sauce from the best of the best. Mani’s Test Kitchen developed sauce with tomatoes fresh from the field, leading to Dave’s entry into the pasta sauce category.
Way Station, Beer & BBQ
For this Marin County, California, beer garden Mani researched, tested and developed recipes, techniques and formulas from dry rubs to BBQ sauce, preps and smoke times, virtually all aspects of operating a smoker. Essential to the project included training and coordinating with the team for a successful hand off. According to owner Brain Back, “ Our kitchen needed a shot in the arm and Mani delivered. The BBQ is back on track and his sides are spectacular: mac-n-cheese, corn bread and quinoa-roast sweet potato salad brought us full circle.”
Akasha Restaurant
As this cornerstone restaurant in Culver City enters its 12th year, Akasha wanted to reinvigorate the bakery department, especially with some new vegan and gluten free offerings. Mani baked up a storm of cookies, cupcakes, gluten free English muffins and cornmeal waffles and even the Original L.A. Fauxnut ™, a vegan baked donut originally created for actor Danny DeVito in a movie role. Can’t get more LA than that!
About Mani’s Test Kitchen
Hi, I’m Mani Niall and I’ve been tinkering in the kitchen all my life. While my recent test kitchen work assists food companies in creating and launching new products and taste sensations, my interest in the kitchen goes back to my family. In our house, everyone cooked: Dad made vichyssoise, coq au vin and other dishes he had tasted in France, my sisters loved to make cookies, whole wheat bread and granola and Mom sent me to the garden every night to “snip some chives” to whisk into the salad dressing just before dinner.
Since my first job at a classic health food restaurant in college, I’ve been fortunate enough to work across the culinary spectrum beginning with baking at both retail and manufacturing levels, product development projects, culinary student education and writing cookbooks.
In 1990 I launched a retail location in Los Angeles, Mänis’s Bakery, dedicated to creating alternative baked goods with everything from full- fat to low fat, mocha whip cream cakes to vegan baked donuts and even a few early era gluten free scones and cookies. The results were summarized by the Senior Editor of Bon Appetit, Karen Kaplan, “their sugar –free, fruit sweetened cookies, turnovers, tarts and cakes are sophisticated, beautiful and delicious and made a convert out of me…”
I sold the bakery to my business partner and headed to San Francisco in 1999, where I founded Mani’s Test Kitchen. Bakery production taught me the importance of meticulous record keeping and detailed instructions for consistency in taste. Applying these fundamentals of baking to savory products has allowed me to develop snacks, beverages, sauces and entrees for brands like Dole, Numi Tea, Heinz, Jamba Juice and Seeds of Change.
I worked closely with bakery Just Desserts for six years as head R & D chef for their nationally distributed products. The National Honey Board brought me on board for three years to create and implement a culinary student education program to promote varietal honey. As an entrepreneur I opened Sweet Bar Bakery in 2012 and sold it to a bagel and coffee team in 2018.
Publications
Sweet & Natural Baking, Chronicle, 1994
Bakery expert columnist (www.clabbergirl.com, 2001-2008)
Covered in Honey, Rodale, 2003
Sweet!, Perseus (Top 20 cookbook award, Food & Wine, 2009)
Good Morning Baking, Egg and Dart, 2012
