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.
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“Mani’s Test Kitchen created the base formulas for our foray into organic, heirloom tomato pasta sauces-Mani rocks!
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“Numi just celebrated our 20th anniversary. As we enter our third decade in business, we are excited to partner with Mani’s Test Kitchen to explore and develop new tastes and opportunities, for now Top Secret!
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“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!
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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 ~
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 ~
In manufacturing I spent six years as part of a scale-up and production team working with sales, accounting, CEO and directly with clients responding to custom requests for new products.
Taste test ~
Conducted anonymously for unbiased results and facilitate group discussion after opinions submitted to get best consensus.
Troubleshooting ~
Aka 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 when necessary!
Ideation ~
Strategize new ideas and trends and what are people ready to embrace.
Restaurant Standards ~
Years of compliance and collaboration with Health Dept to achieve passing grade and uphold standards. Manager level ServSafe certification.
SEE MY HANDY WORK
About Me
MY NAME IS mani
Everyone in my family cooked, Dad, Mom and two sisters, so I grew up tinkering in the kitchen - Mom always sent me to the garden just before dinner to “snip some chives” for the salad dressing. I learned early on that food was a way to connect with people and the earth.