Delicious smells coming from the kitchen-cum-laboratory area. Kate O'Donovan is in the inner sanctum creating a new taste. The ingredients that she may decide to add to this top-secret recipe are at her finger tips - soya sauce, paprika, onions, herbs, garlic and spices are all ranged around. Aromas fill the air. Every new element to the mix is carefully measured and annotated.
This is the research and development department of All-in-All Ingredients in Dublin. It's a laboratory where mouth-watering concoctions are made to specific, scientific calculations.
O'Donovan, from Bishopstown in Cork city, works at creating a new product or blend. Her company, a food ingredients manufacturer, supplies the food industry with new tastes, sauces, glazes and recipes. "You really have to have a science background," she says.
"That knowledge and a language also is a great bonus. I use French now - it's very helpful. We have to bring in spices, herbs and so on from all over the world. Ireland is getting so much into export, most people in industry will use another language."
Her job involves working on different areas in the development of new products, such as making a new type of crumb or adding value to meat products, developing new flavours or marinades. "My job would be to decide what ingredients to blend together to put into the final product."
She also provides technical support to sales people. "Every industry is consumer-lead. Every industry now has an R&D department. It's no longer a luxury, it's a necessity. A lot of industries would depend on suppliers to give them that bit of extra support in R&D or the technical area . . . we supply them with either a straightforward product or a blend.
O'Donovan says that the science subjects she studied at school were very important. "I built on the subjects I was good at. I always liked science. I was far stronger on science, maybe it was because I was from an engineering family. I didn't have any farming background. I always liked maths problems - I preferred them to writing essays. Maths was the strongest of all my subjects. Having completed her schooling at the Convent of Mercy in Clonakilty, Co Cork, in 1988, she went to UCC's food science and technology department to study for a diploma in meat science. After completing this course, she went on to do a B Sc in food business.
"It was very much an all-round degree," she explains. "The first two years in the diploma programme were very technical and based on meat science, a very good base for R&D."
Her final year project involved developing a product for the market. "The projects are very realistic," she recalls. "You have to go out and get the prices for products." Four students worked on the project, in UCC's processing hall, doing market research, developing, financing and producing.
"It involved knowing how you are going to sell it. We did a low fat sausage replacing pork fat with a more healthy fat." The students are allowed to replicate products already available. O'Donovan mentions in particular the vital industrial perspective supplied by Eddie Twomey, owner of the Clonakilty Black Pudding Company. "He was a great help," she says. The project won the IDA's Student Enterprise South West Regional Award.
After graduation, O'Donovan moved to UCD to do a masters in marketing. It was a tough year but very useful. After completing this course, she started work in Anglo Irish Beef Processors (AIBP) in Rathkeale, Co Limerick.
A year later she moved to R&D at Irish Country Meats, a division of Avonmore, in Rooskey, Co Roscommon, where she worked for two years. "There I had a lot more to do with the area of production," says O'Donovan. "I was more geared to the marketing. I had to see all those products right through to sale."
The move to her current job has given her "a wider focus. I'm dealing with all sectors here - meat, dairy, vegetarian."
