Light bites and refreshments are included with your ticket; please indicate any dietary restrictions in your ticket order confirmation form.

Heads up, as always, we'll have VIPs in attendance as well!

Hey Chicago: Startup CPG is hosting our first-ever Founders & Formulators event!

Join us at the historic Palmer House Hotel for an afternoon of structured "speed-dating" with the top food scientists and product developers in town for IFT FIRST 2026.

Finding the right formulator on your own usually means months of cold outreach, dead-end calls, and guessing whether someone's expertise even fits your product. This event skips that process entirely, giving you 1:1 time with multiple formulators.

Each expert brings different knowledge, experience, and working style, so you’ll get lots of different perspectives which you can use to improve your product.

Not necessarily looking to bring on a formulator? Come anyway. These formulators can taste your product, evaluate your formula in person, and give you expert insights you can't get from a call with someone who's never actually seen your product.

Whether you're still in development and looking for a partner or trying to scale something that's already on shelves, bring what you're working on!

Light bites and refreshments are included with your ticket; please indicate any dietary restrictions in your ticket order confirmation form.

Heads up, as always, we'll have VIPs in attendance as well!

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