Culinologist isn’t a job title that most people are familiar with. So Brian Andrews and Joel Reiman, two resident practitioners at Hormel Foods, often find themselves answering variations on the question “What is it you do, exactly?”

Andrews has a simple answer. “Culinology is a blending of the science and the art of cooking,” he said. This is true, but somewhat modest.

Reiman has a slightly different spin.

“What we do day in and day out often mirrors what humans have done for centuries,” he said. “We’ve always had a way of preserving the nutrition in food. The job of a culinologist is to understand those processes and find the science that allows us to use them most effectively.”