FoodGrads Podcast Episode 71: Embracing challenges when working towards your dream career with Liana Yee, Junior Product Specialist at Export Packers Company Limited
In this episode, we cover what a product developer does, advise students looking into a career in product development and pay mind to allergens when creating products. But we’ll also go deeper into how to embrace challenges to help you grow.
Today’s guest is Liana Yee, Junior Product Specialist at Export Packers Company Limited. Export Packers is an international importer, exporter and distributor of food commodities. They operate five key business segments: International Trading, Domestic Food Service, Retail, Asian and Fresh Seafood. You may know them for their Diamond Harvest and Ocean Jewel retail product lines. Liana is a graduate of the University of Guelph Food Science program and has had roles in Quality Control and Quality Assurance. She is passionate about raising awareness around food allergens and supporting students.
Table of Contents
Show Notes
Timestamps
[2:05] University of Guelph Spill the Beans Event
[3:45] What Liana does at Export Packers as a product developer
[8:49] Where Liana gets her inspiration when developing new products
[10:41] How Liana got to where she is today
[20:29] Times that Liana has used her background from QA in her product development
[21:59] What Liana enjoys about her current job
[28:10] Why Liana enjoys about thinking about allergies when developing products
[35:06] Challenges that Liana is currently experiencing with her work
[43:15] Advice Liana would give to students that want a career similar to hers
Links
Export Packers Company Limited
Liana Yee LinkedIn
Liana Yee Quotes
So the inspiration mainly would come from I think top trends right now that we see, playing around with different flavors and spices and also different shapes that we can manipulate the seafood into [which] is where I think a lot of our inspiration comes from.
– Liana Yee
But I did love science so I just kind of searched up like is there a career that kind of meshes both of them and behold there was. So ever since that day, I’ve always wanted to go into food science and I’m very lucky that since then and all throughout university and up until now, my mind has not changed much.
– Liana Yee
Product Development is about understanding your overall product and all those different steps contribute to that. And it all adds knowledge to it at the end of the day. So I think any exposure you can get within the food industry itself.
– Liana Yee
So I do enjoy that. It’s like a nice balance of like we do have moments when we’re at our desks cause we’re doing like admin stuff and then we also have, most of the time we’re like in the test kitchen. So I enjoy that.
– Liana Yee
And growing up I told myself that once I into the food industry I would help find alternatives for people like that in that position so that they’d be able to enjoy the things that everyone else can. So that’s kind of like what sparked that fire in and in terms of applying that to my current job.
– Liana Yee
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