On The Job 'I smell and taste spoilt milk'

In this series, people from all walks of life offer an inside — often unfiltered — take on their livelihoods and what keeps them going in their jobs. In this installment, hear from beverage scientist Wong Tak Hiong, who leads in developing products like 100Plus Zero Sugar, F&N NutriSoy and F&N Magnolia milk, as told to The Sunday Times.

- Sharon Salim

I am 49, and I have had a hand in developing and launching more than 300 products throughout my 20-odd years as a drinks scientist at Fraser and Neave (F&N). I deal with food products as well, although they make up only a small portion of my work. A combination of art, science, technology and innovation drives my work, so you can call me a food technologist too.

My colleagues and I are passionate about our jobs. My day often begins with my team members serving me coffee — not because they have to or want to, but because they would like me to taste their products. Different milk specifications can alter the flavour of a cup of coffee. We try to show how our milk can create different foaming properties to make various latte art designs.

Part of my job is training and mentoring more than 30 food technologists in Singapore and Malaysia. Some of my team members have undergone barista training, so our "in-house baristas" can ensure our milk is suitable for lattes, for instance. We call this an application trial to understand the needs of our food and beverage businesses and consumers.

Let's say a product has a 12-month shelf life. I need to taste the product every week to monitor the changes and understand the science behind it. This is part of the training for the job.

People think I spend a lot of time in the lab, but that's not true. I meet and speak to many people, including our teams in the marketing, procurement and purchasing departments, because we decide on the ingredients to buy when we develop a new product. We have more than 10 manufacturing plants in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

I also spend a lot of time looking at artificial intelligence tools to understand market trends and new product launches. We buy and test these new products from across the world.

"EVERY NEW PRODUCT HAS ITS OWN STORY"