The Man with the Service Gene: Kay Schumacher

“It makes me happy to help people and advise them,” says Kay Schumacher, 45. He calls this the “service gene,” a perfect trait for a Head of Product Application and Development. Born in (the north German coastal city of) Kiel, Schumacher worked for many years as a product developer in fruit processing at a dairy. In 2014, he joined Bösch Boden Spies in Hamburg and helped establish the Ingredient Technology Center (ITC). He lives in Lübeck, with his wife and two children.

Mr. Schumacher, you head the Ingredient Technology Center at Bösch Boden Spies – what exactly do you do?

At the ITC, my colleagues and I analyze the technological possibilities of ingredients and make them tangible with application concepts. We strive to be experts for our ingredients and pass this knowledge on to our colleagues and customers. I coordinate the workflows at the ITC, handle the technical support, and plan facilities and purchases. I pay great attention to flexibility. For example, the rooms have to be equipped in such a way that they can accommodate a larger group when we have meetings with customers, but also enable every colleague to work alone every once in a while.

How do you get ideas for new products, or innovative new ways to use ingredients?

Like my colleagues, I am responsible for a particular product segment – in my case the dairy sector – that matches my professional background. My development colleagues and I encourage every employee to share with us their product ideas or market observations at any time. Each idea sparks thought processes that culminate in tangible – or taste-able – application concepts. Add to that personal curiosity about whether certain combinations of flavor and texture work, and catering to the latest food trends. That leads to some amazing things.

What ingredients are you currently doing a lot with?

At the moment, we’re doing a lot of exploring and experimenting with the wild Canadian blueberry in all its forms. Our longtime partner Oxford Frozen Foods had a bumper crop this year, making the price of the little wild berries particularly attractive in Europe. Oxford also launched sweetened, dried wild blueberries this year, which are unrivaled in terms of safety with regard to pesticides and impurities. We are currently working on various product concepts that particularly emphasize the added value of product safety, originality, and taste.

Do you have a favorite ingredient?

Actually, several. Personally, I like things sour and aromatic-fruity-exotic, that’s why I love goldenberries and passionfruit. As a food technologist, prunes are my favorite, because they are a particularly exciting and extraordinarily versatile, valuable ingredient.

Did you already know you wanted to become a “food inventor” when you were a child?

Yes, this is in fact the job of my dreams. As a boy, I was fascinated when the “Sendung mit der Maus” [an educational German TV show for children, featuring an orange cartoon mouse] showed chocolate, jellybeans and beverage bottles being manufactured or bottled at breathtaking speeds. The only food company of appreciable size in my hometown Kiel was a brewery, so I became a brewer and later studied food science and biotechnology in Berlin.

Who’s in charge of the grocery shopping at home: you or your wife?

For practical reasons, during the week my wife is; I do our weekend shopping at the weekly market. I always end up buying far too much fruit. An occupational hazard, I guess.

What happens to you when you go shopping at the supermarket and see the many, many products?

Well, if I’m sent out to get a couple of quarts of milk, I return home after 1.5 hours to a rather annoyed family – because my wife believes that I scan every single supermarket shelf for new products that our ingredients might possibly be added to. Another occupational hazard.

So you get just as intensely involved with food in your personal life as well?

Food plays an enormous role in our family. Both with regard to healthy eating and growing our own vegetables, and to processing it, and cooking and eating together. I’m responsible for pasta dishes, my wife for stews. Dinner, even on a weeknight, can on occasion take up 2.5 hours from prep to dishwasher.