Miriam Abundez Guerra’s love of cooking dates to the days when she was a little girl helping her mother cook meals for the family.

She didn’t relish being in the kitchen initially, but as the years went by, Abundez Guerra (’19, food science and technology) really got into cooking and baking.

“We didn’t have a lot of money growing up,” she says. “If my friends and I had $10, we would say let’s go to the store, buy some ingredients and see if we can make a cheesecake.”

Years later, the CPP alumna spends most of her time in professional kitchens, working in research and development for Beyond Meat, the El Segundo-based company that produces plant-based meat substitutes. Her job is to make new products. Sometimes, inspiration strikes for a new idea, and research and development sees if the public has an appetite for it. Other times, a customer will pitch something, which she finds the most exciting.

The company recently launched a seared beef tips substitute, a product that Abundez Guerra briefly worked on in flavor development.

“It’s different every day,” Abundez Guerra says. “It’s fun to be creative. If you do see something, come to fruition, you can say, ‘I was a part of that.’”

Abundez Guerra joined Beyond Meat in 2020, working her way up from a lab assistant to a food technologist. Her job often requires her to break new ground through research, as Beyond Meat is among the most innovative companies making vegan products. A typical day includes following up on previous food experiments, making and testing batches of products, collaborating with suppliers and meeting with customers.

“One day at 9 a.m., I ate a bunch of burgers,” she says.

Even though Abundez Guerra loved to be in the kitchen growing up, she wanted to be a scientist, not a chef or baker. She knew that Cal Poly Pomona had a food science and technology program but came in as a chemistry major.

“It’s different every day,” Abundez Guerra says. “It’s fun to be creative. If you do see something, come to fruition, you can say, ‘I was a part of that.’”

Still, the pull toward food remained. In one of her undergraduate classes, she was assigned to write an essay on what she was most passionate about and chose cooking and baking as her topic.

After three or four years as a chemistry major, she switched to food science and technology. It was an easy transition for her because the program requires a minor in chemistry or microbiology, she says.

While at CPP, she worked full-time at Mission Foods in Rancho Cucamonga, conducting food safety inspections. She was hired as an intern in 2018 at Fruitripe, a small Riverside-based company that gets imported fruit from different countries, ripens it in the United States and distributes it to grocery stores. After graduation (in which Abundez Guerra was the first in her family to finish college) the three-month internship turned into a full-time job.

Now, at Beyond Meat, Abundez Guerra gets to do what she has always loved to do since she was a teen in the kitchen with her friends — play with food.

“I meet a lot of brilliant people here. We have people who are passionate about our mission,” she says. “I really enjoy my job. It’s fun, and I have a lot of autonomy too. I am getting paid to cook and pursue my passions.”