From bench to production—without the black box.

I help food technology companies commercialize novel ingredients and products. Fermentation, plant-based, cultivated, functional — from science to scalable manufacturing.

JUST Egg GOOD Meat Beyond Meat CellX Mourish XPRIZE FDA

What I do.

Novel Ingredient Commercialization

Lab to commercial scale. Process development, scale-up strategy, regulatory pathway.

Manufacturing Scale-Up

Tech transfer, co-man selection, process parameters, and quality systems that hold.

Regulatory Strategy

FDA pathways, GRAS, novel food submissions, labeling. Fast and compliant.

Troubleshooting

Stability, texture drift, yield loss, microbial issues. Root cause → fix → scale.

CPG Product Launch

Emerging brands

Formulation to shelf. Clean label, co-man readiness, specs, and launch support.

Fractional CTO

Senior food science leadership without the full-time hire. Pipeline, team, vendors.

Who I work with.

  • VC-backed food tech commercializing novel ingredients
  • Fermentation, cultivated, and plant-based platforms
  • CPG founders launching first scalable products
  • Teams needing fractional technical leadership

How it works.

  • Diagnose — technical audit of formula, process, risks
  • Plan — roadmap, success criteria, risk register
  • Execute — trials, vendor coordination, regulatory filings
  • Scale — tech transfer, QC systems, continuous improvement

Selected projects.

Meng Li, PhD

Meng Li, PhD

I commercialize food technologies. I've taken novel proteins from a lab bench to hundreds of millions of units on shelves — across plant-based, cultivated, and fermentation platforms.

Former Director of Food Science at Eat Just. Former FDA researcher. I've been on the factory floor, in the regulatory meetings, and in the pilot plant at 2 AM when the batch fails.

I don't advise from the sidelines. I embed with your team and stay until the process runs clean at scale.

Platforms

  • Plant-based proteins
  • Precision fermentation
  • Cultivated meat
  • Functional mushroom / mycelium

Background

  • PhD Food Science — UMD
  • Director, Food Science — Eat Just
  • Postdoc — FDA (CFSAN)
  • 3 Patents · 7 Publications

Location

  • San Francisco. Working globally.

Let's build something that scales.

20-minute intro call. No pitch, just problem-solving.

Book a Call