Ep. 096 - The Harvest Internship Pivot with Tara Riley, Director of Food Safety at Savour Food Safety International

Dec 11, 2017

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After 5 years as a corporate food scientist, Tara decided it was time for a change.

She decided to explore the wine industry.

If you’re in any agricultural university who has a wine and viticulture program, you might have heard stories of the students going all over the world to get Harvest Internships, a time where the vineyards need people to help harvest and process wine from grapes!

Tara did exactly that and moved from Ohio all the way to beautiful upstate New York to make wine.

Conveniently, Tara works in a consulting group called Savour International and is doubling up doing quality projects in the winery. Nice!

Tara’s interview is great if it’s time for a change in your career. You’ll learn about the pros and cons of taking risks, the power of being flexible, and you’ll get a complete rundown of how she got her Harvest Internship, and what she does on the daily.

Key Takeaways

How Tara jumped into the wine industry after 5 years of baby food
How to find what you’re passionate about
How to describe food science
The beauty of quotes

Question Summary

Harvest Intern Positions are only in the Fall. What do you tell them in a sentence or less: Food Scientist or Savour Food Safety International – Consulting Firm. No limits in what they can do Advice: Take risks in the beginning of your career. It’s the time you can be the most risky. How did you find out about Food Science?: Found out food science about from brother Skills: Flexibility and change in regards to regulations. Flexible in every way Siliker Can you be flexible in a large company?: Maybe it’s hard in large companies. Private companies? It depends. How to do a harvest internship: Hand pick grapes, bring to the press, crop dust the grapes, clean or take out the grapes, process, and ferment. Then put it into bottles. Every winemaker processes wine differently. What’s your favorite part of the process?: NOT cleaning! Also, the fact that you can see the product made from farm to fork. Connect with Tara to learn about Wine Stuff My Food Job Rocks: I get to work with so many things at once. What’s your dream job title?: Brewmaster before. Now it’s Multipotentialites. I just want a job that challenges me all the time. Also known as Polyglots For Adam: I distilled my goals and I realized creativity makes me happy. Food Science: How it’s made Technology that Interests you: Sustainability Biggest Challenge the food industry needs to face?: The Average Person using 1 article to justify that things are bad for you. What’s your 5 year plan?: That question is scrapped because things are moving so fast Who inspired you to get into food?: My family. I grew up in a dairy farm. We did Farm to Fork Quote: Let the beauty of what you love be what you do Favorite Food: Trying Acai Bowls and Fresh Poke in Hawaii. Vacation makes everything taste better How to prepare for the work force: Projects take weeks in college, but in real life, they take years and things are always changing. Being able to say no. But say yes when you’re new.