2022

Xinrong Dong graduated from Henan University of Technology in China and started her career as a process engineer in a soybean oil plant. She continued her studies and received a food microbiology master’s degree, teaching students and researching fungal lipids and yogurt fermentation as an assistant professor. After a few years, she started her Ph.D. study at North Dakota State University. Her research included malting & brewing, enzyme isolation & purification, characterization, and baking. Following graduation, she worked for Kraft Foods, Bimbo Bakeries, and Pepperidge Farm on dough rheology and enzyme technology & application in baking.  In 2012, she took an R&D manager position at Tyson Foods in Green Bay, Wisconsin, leading the projects on pizza crust, flatbread, and tortillas development and innovation. She was responsible for the R&D activities including Food Service, National Accounts, and Industrial Pizza Toppers in creating new products, building line & product extensions, and developing products to meet customers’ needs. After her time at Tyson Foods, she was recruited to be the North American R&D Project Lead at Mondelez International, to manage the projects of multiple brand platforms and activities, to lead new product launches, line extension, and line qualification, to analyze consumer complaints, and resolved the issues from plants regarding ingredients, formulation, process, and product specification.  In 2020, she led global and regional Health & Wellness projects and provided technical guidance for NA R&D to minimize product risk and to meet legal requirements. Xinrong joined J&K Ingredients in 2022 as the R&D Director.

North Dakota State University