Name: Jared Diehl

Hometown: Dayton, VA

Major and Graduation Date: Culinary Food Science, Spring 2018

Favorite ISU Class:  I really enjoyed our Food Product Development Class.  Since I wanted to pursue a career in food product development this class made me really excited to graduate and pursue a career in research and development.  Learning how to produce a food product from Ideation to Commercialization was very interesting and helped to strengthen my love for food and food product development.

Job title and Company:  Innovation and Design Lead, Buddy’s Kitchen

Major Job/Position Responsibilities:  Buddy’s Kitchen is a custom frozen food manufacturer.  I work as the Innovation and Design Lead for the Convenience Store Channel.  This entails ideation, development, commercialization and launching the product into stores.

What you like most about your job/position?  One of my favorite parts of my job is that I get to see a product from start to finish and everything in between.  At some companies the product developer has a specific job of ideation or just launching the product but at Buddy’s Kitchen the developer is responsible for everything.

What advice would you give to current students pursuing a career in Agriculture and Life Sciences?  My advice would be to always pursue new opportunities and not to be scared of failure.  While in college I took advantage of the career fair with internships and it helped me to land where I am today.  Some internships may seem daunting and out of your comfort zone but it will be worth it in the end.