ITHACA, N.Y. -- Food product development starts with an idea, then moves into the food lab and ends up as a consumer good for use in a kitchen. For the Cornell University Product Development Team, what started as a good idea quickly moved into three kitchens. Armed with borrowed chef equipment, pastry bags and a plastic ruler, the team prepared prototype biscuits in graduate student Sarah Douglas' kitchen. Their ultimate goal: to make "Stir-Ins," a cookie- and chocolate- based flavorant to make freshly brewed coffee more ambient and aromatic.

Coffee lovers should perk up to note: With this product, the team is one of six finalists in the prestigious Institute of Food Technologists' (IFT) Student Association 1996 Product Development Competition, held in New Orleans in June. Team members are from both Cornell's Ithaca, N.Y., campus and Cornell's New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, N.Y.

With Susan Connell, also a graduate student, Douglas piped out the dough in the first step to prepare the base cookie sticks for the next kitchen, precisely measuring both the length and diameter of each rod with the ruler. Then, in another kitchen, graduate student Alison Edwards experimented with a variety of chocolates that don't melt at temperatures around 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

After Edwards applied the chocolate coating onto the baked cookie sticks, the team moved the product into graduate student Kathryn Deibler's kitchen. She brewed a lot of fresh coffee to see if the various flavors could be dispersed. Between all the kitchens and the culinary challenges, testing and tasting went on for weeks.

It melts in your coffee, not in your hands. Stir-Ins are a pencil-shaped, lightly sweetened, vanilla-almond biscuit with a chocolate coating and a flavored layer, available in Hazelnut, Irish Creme, or French Vanilla. The flavor quickly blends into the freshly brewed coffee, leaving the biscuit enveloped in warmed, milk chocolate.

EDITORS: Interviews with any of the food science team members or their faculty adviser are available by contacting Blaine Friedlander, Cornell News Service, (607) 255-3290.

"This competition shows that the students have mastered all the components of the food science process," said Joseph Regenstein, Cornell professor of food science and team adviser. "This has become one of the most competitive events at IFT and it is really a place where students can showcase their talent. With some 18,000 people at the IFT convention, it's an unbelievable amount of good exposure." Last year, Cornell unseated the four-year reigning champion, the University of Minnesota, with the high-tech, tasty and toaster-ready Pizza Pop-ups. The IFT Student Association names six universities each year to compete in the finals of the Product Development Competition sponsored by Mars Inc. This year, Cornell's Stir-Ins will be competing with the Bagelrito (University of California at Davis), Biscuit Bakes (Kansas State University); Skoochos (Iowa State University), Jungle Pals (Michigan State University), and Fruit Puffs (University of Minnesota).

Cornell team members and their hometowns are: Susan P. Connell, graduate student, Thousand Oaks, Calif.; Ellen Chamberlain, graduate student, Des Plaines, Ill.; Sheila Sidhu, graduate student in Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management, Scotch Plains, N.J.; Kathryn Deibler, graduate student, Ft. Walton Beach, Fla.; Alison Edwards, graduate student, Sea Girt, N.J.; Sarah Douglas, graduate student, Apple Creek, Ohio; Dawn Norton, graduate student, Camarillo, Calif.; Rachel Adleman, senior from Ithaca, N.Y.; Jane Friedrich, graduate student, St. Cloud, Minn.; Matthew Sade, graduate student in Cornell's Johnson School, Mendham, N.J.; and Mariano Tosso, graduate student and Fulbright Scholar from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The competition at the IFT meeting consists of an oral presentation in front of both the judges (who will ask questions) and an audience, a poster display, a product sampling (for the judges only) and a detailed written report. The IFT has brought the student competition to the forefront of the convention, making it a prominent and popular feature. The teams will give their oral presentations and visual descriptions on Sunday, June 23, 1996.

In February, the team submitted a five-page report that was devoid of any reference to Cornell to the IFT Student Association. That report included the product concept, market potential, the product formulation, a description of the product packaging, an explanation of the production process and a report of safety and quality assurance. "The students have shown that they can apply their understanding of food science to produce solutions to real- world problems -- problems that are quite complex," Regenstein said.

While their idea was brewing, the students' resources became tapped out. To get from Ithaca to New Orleans, the team is looking for financial assistance. To discuss helping the team out financially, contact Susan Connell at (607) 255-1808 or (607) 277-7928. In addition to money, the team is also looking for help in purchasing ingredients.