Yauheni Padniuk
15 years building production IT systems — infrastructure, edge AI, innovation platforms. Since 2019: bonbons, truffles, caramels, and an unhealthy interest in emulsion theory.
The Story
I started making chocolate during the 2019 lockdown — not as a chef, but as a software architect bored at home. Got hooked. Bonbons, truffles, caramels, fillings. And hit every wall you've probably hit.
International recipes that called for chocolate brands unavailable in my region. I'd substitute, the recipe would look right, and the result would be wrong — too thick, splitting after a day. One pistachio ganache batch failed over and over. When I finally ran the water activity models, the answer was obvious: my substitute had a different fat profile and the emulsion was already at its limit before I even started. The recipe didn't fail. I just didn't have the numbers.
I looked for a tool that could tell me this upfront. Too basic or full enterprise ERP — nothing in between. So I built one. The water activity models (Norrish, GAB, Couchman-Karasz) come from peer-reviewed food science literature. The shelf life predictions, emulsion scoring, texture signals — all tested against my own kitchen. Formul.io started as a personal R&D notebook. I shared it because other people had the same problems.