In this episode of R&D Radio, hosted by Adam Yee, Adam sits down with Travis Zissu, founder of Scale Food Labs — an FDA-registered pilot food manufacturing facility in Golden, Colorado helping emerging brands turn benchtop formulas into scalable, production-ready products. With over a decade of food industry experience spanning culinary school at the CIA, GNT Natural Colors, and Chew Innovation, Travis has made it his mission to democratize the product development knowledge he's accumulated and make scalability a first principle, not an afterthought.
Travis walks through his end-to-end process — from ingredient sourcing and prototype development to consumer testing, pilot runs, and full production — and explains why discovering problems before you hit a manufacturer is worth far more than any single formula tweak. He also shares why 90% acceptance is the real launch threshold, and what founders get dangerously wrong when they fall in love with their home kitchen recipe.
He also dives into two standout client stories: a founder who came to Expo West with four vague ideas and left with a launched, distributor-ready hot-filled acidified product — and a farmer's market entrepreneur who went from buying spice jars at Whole Foods to opening a $12 million facility.
Listen in as they discuss:
- Why sourcing from scalable suppliers must happen before you ever touch the bench
- The danger of switching ingredient suppliers at scale — and the real cost of finding out too late
- Why you'll never launch exactly what you made at home, and why that's okay
- How Scale Food Labs stress tests pilots: turning up heat, skipping stirs, and pouring off at multiple intervals
- Protein trends: the rise of animal-based protein, BLG (beta-lactoglobulin) whey, and a supply chain already running dry through 2027
- Fiber as a parallel trend — and why GI distress is the thing that kills fiber-forward products
- Cell-based meats: what it's actually like to taste cultured chicken, and why Travis is rooting hard for the category
Episode Links:
Travis Zissu – Founder, Scale Food Labs
🌐 Website: www.scalefoodlabs.com
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zissu
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- Episode music by Super Fantastics
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