MSc in Culinary Leadership & Innovation : R&D module in collaboration by ISARA and Kraft Heinz

What’s the best way to train future leaders in food and gastronomy – capable of innovating, understanding industrial challenges and elevating taste? By creating powerful bridges between the scientific and culinary worlds. That’s the objective of the Research & Development module of the MSc in Culinary Leadership & Innovation, delivered in collaboration by Institut Lyfe and ISARA, a leading engineering school specialising in agri-food, agronomy and environmental science.

By choosing this R&D focused module, our students have the opportunity to tackle real-world issues. A notable example is the workshop run as part of the Research & Development module, where students were asked to fulfil a precise brief from agri-food group Kraft Heinz.

A unique alliance between two schools of excellence: ISARA and Lyfe Institute

To enrich the R&D module, Institut Lyfe has established a partnership with ISARA. Over the course of several weeks, ten students from the Master of Science in Culinary Leadership & Innovation teamed up with ten students from ISARA, to meet a strategic brief from the Kraft Heinz Group.

An intense collaboration, in a hybrid format: our students spent four weeks immersed in the scientific environment of ISARA in Lyon, while their engineering counterparts joined the Institut Lyfe campus for a week of culinary, creative and sensory exploration.

As part of the joint module between Institut Lyfe and ISARA, I had the opportunity to discover the world of food R&D in a more practical way. The subjects taught allowed me to approach product development with much more rigour and a clear methodology, while understanding the challenges of food R&D. We followed the entire process: from ideation to marketing, through pilot plant trials.

The objective of these exchanges? Combining expertise to better understand the challenges of both the scientific and culinary worlds, in order to develop solutions that meet the concrete expectations of the market as well as industry stakeholders.

Objective: to create viable, creative and industrialisation-ready food solutions – the Kraft Heinz case

This Research & Development module also offered a strong professional dimension, with students working for a major player in the food industry: Kraft Heinz.

Two distinct product lines emerged from the multidisciplinary collaboration:

• An innovation range: based on infused fats (aromatic extractions of fats using herbs, spices or condiments), the students conceived original products such as spreads, sauces and marinades, designed to create new uses or meet emerging consumer expectations.
• An activation range, centred around the iconic Heinz ketchup and mayonnaise products, offering:
• A disruptive and surprising recipe (e.g. ketchup ice cream, savoury cinnamon rolls);
• A recipe designed for chefs and restaurant professionals;
• An accessible recipe for the general public, easy to prepare at home.

This comprehensive approach required a mix of culinary skills, consumer insight and the industrial expertise provided by the ISARA students.

Through this project, students developed an understanding of the requirements related to food product industrialisation: formulation, production constraints, traceability, packaging – without compromising on creativity and taste.

In this project for Kraft Heinz, we applied everything we had learned in theory, but above all, the collaboration with the ISARA students was a real plus. Even if it wasn’t easy at first, we brought our ideas, our culinary creativity, and they helped us take a step back. They made us think about factors that we hadn’t necessarily considered, such as stability, texture, or industrial feasibility. It was incredibly enriching to be able to interact with them, to propose our ideas, get their feedback and build a more successful product together.

A hands-on professional experience, at the heart of the industry

This partnership with ISARA illustrates Institut Lyfe’s drive to bring together different skills to train hybrid profiles, capable of adapting to the complexity of tomorrow’s professions, while enabling students to learn in real-life conditions.

The Master of Science in Culinary Leadership & Innovation prepares future food leaders to navigate complex, multicultural and constantly evolving environments.

As part of the Master of Science in Culinary Leadership & Innovation, students at Institut Lyfe can choose a module from: Fine Dining Gastronomy, Consulting, Entrepreneurship or Research & Development.
Whether your goal is to launch your own venture, become a consultant, work in R&D, or develop cutting-edge culinary concepts, this MSc is designed to turn your passion into a force for sustainable impact in the industry.

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