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Women In Science
Career Ladder
Career Ladder: Catherine Goffinet
This Ben & Jerry’s flavor guru made a career out of her love of food and chemistry
by Arminda Downey-Mavromatis
August 3, 2019
| A version of this story appeared in
Volume 97, Issue 31
Credit: Catherine Goffinet
Catherine Goffinet learned flavorings at a unique master’s program.
1980's
Early life in chemistry
Catherine Goffinet grew up surrounded by chemistry. Her father was a chemist, and her hometown of Gif sur Yvette outside Paris was dense with scientific institutions. “Chemistry for me really builds everything,” Goffinet says. At age 10, she visited a perfume museum. She found the idea that individual molecules would smell different “amazing.”
2004
An unconventional education
Credit: Catherine Goffinet
Catherine Goffinet discovered a love of food science during her bachelor’s degree in Paris.
It seemed natural that Goffinet would major in chemistry at Paris-Sud University. While there, she came across the work of Hervé This. She was interested in how he used physical chemistry “to push the limits of cooking.” The group would invite chefs and scientists to scientifically test the tricks that chefs use in the kitchen. One such experiment involved chefs using a rotary evaporator to concentrate the taste of foods. Goffinet ended up working in This’s lab at the National Institute for Agricultural Research as a molecular gastronomy intern from 2010 to 2011 after completing her master’s degree in flavorings at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, the school that housed the perfume museum she visited as a child.
2011
Tea in Turkey
Credit: Catherine Goffinet
An apprenticeship in molecular gastronomy moved Catherine Goffinet into product development.
Goffinet’s first job was working as a product developer for teas and infusions in Unilever’s Lipton line. Her work in teas led her to Turkey, where she stayed for 6 months. “What I really loved in this was understanding how one single ingredient can be used in so many ways,” she says, “and also understanding how this links to so many people’s cultures.”
2016
A pretty sweet job
Credit: Catherine Goffinet
Catherine Goffinet now works as a flavor guru at Ben & Jerry's.
After her time in teas and in Turkey, Goffinet moved into working in product development for ice cream. She worked briefly on Unilever’s Solero, Fruttare, and Magnum brands before making the move to Ben & Jerry’s, where she took on the role of flavor guru. Ice cream “brought me a lot closer to the science part of things,” she says. Creating vegan flavors of ice cream had her examining nondairy fat and protein substiutes, including ways to make the ice-cream emulsion stable without traditional ingredients. She also helps craft the technical process behind pint slices. Goffinet is proud of her most recent work on the Moo-phoria line, in which she proved that low-calorie ice cream can be delicious. “I go to the supermarket and I’m like, ‘Ooh, I’m the one who made that.’ ”
Know a chemist with an interesting career path? Tell C&EN about it at cenm.ag/careerladder.
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Chemical & Engineering News
ISSN 0009-2347
Copyright © 2024 American Chemical Society
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