years in the food and beverage industry.
If it involves food and an idea, we can help.
Recipe development and culinary consulting for food brands that want it done right.
Thirty years of professional kitchen experience, including CPG product development and a launched specialty food line — brought to bear on your brand.
30
RECIPE DEVELOPMENT
From a brief to a tested, production-ready recipe. We develop original recipes to your specifications — flavour profile, dietary requirements, scaling needs — and deliver them with headnotes, ingredient weights, process notes, and any production flags worth knowing about.
Tested recipes with full process notes
From $125
RECIPE AUDIT
A professional set of eyes on what you've already got. We review 5–10 of your existing recipes for consistency, scalability, technique, and market fit — and deliver a written report with notes per recipe and a clear priority list of what to address first.
Written report with per-recipe notes
From $275
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
For brands developing a new product line or reformulating an existing one. We work with you from concept through to a launch-ready formulation — flavour development, ingredient ratios, heat benchmarking, shelf stability considerations, and production scaling guidance. This is the work we do before your manufacturer ever sees the brief.
Concept to launch-ready formulation.
Book an phone call to discuss your project
MENU DESIGN
Whether you're opening a new venue, refreshing a tired menu, or designing the food program for an event or hospitality concept — we develop menus that work in practice, not just on paper. Flavour-led, ingredient-driven, and designed around your kitchen's actual capabilities and your customers' actual expectations.
Complete menu with sourcing guidance
From $350
Recent Projects:
Hot honey, from concept to shelf.
My Local Co came to us with a product concept — a hot honey line for the national specialty food market. The brief called for distinct flavour variants with a clear heat progression, production-scalable ratios, and formulations that could survive the journey from small-batch kitchen to commercial manufacturing.
We developed and tested 29 flavour variants, before refinining them down to 4 flavors, and delivered production-ready recipes with precise ingredient ratios and process notes. The line launched on schedule, at Expo West in March 2026.
Client: My Local Co — Project: Hot Honey Line — Deliverable: 4 production-ready formulations — Status: Launched
“Dom was the perfect partner to help bring our new hot honey concept to life. His creativity, product instincts, and collaborative approach made the process smooth from idea to execution, and together we were able to create something innovative, flavorful, and genuinely exciting. ”
Logan Garvin
General Manager
My Local Co30 Years Kitchen Experience, here for your project
Dom Shorthouse has been cooking professionally since the 1990s — classically trained, and most recently working in CPG product development, including taking a specialty food line from concept to market-ready formulation.
His background spans high-end restaurant kitchens in Melbourne, seven years consulting in the hospitality industry across Southeast Asia, and a position as chef instructor at Cascade Culinary Institute in Bend, Oregon. He founded The Grain Collective out of a desire to make that depth of experience available to the kinds of projects that deserve it.
For consulting clients, that means working with someone who has actually done the work — not just designed menus on paper, but developed products that have gone to production, trained teams that have held the line, and cooked for people who came back.
30 years professional kitchen experience — CPG product development, concept through launch — Chef instructor, Cascade Culinary Institute — International hospitality consulting, SE Asia and beyond
Get In Touch
If you're interested in working with us, complete the form with a few details about your project. We'll review your message and get back to you within 48 hours.