Food Styling for UFC

ASSIGNMENT

Food Photographer Mary Lagier and I created meal photography for the printed packaging sleeves and 2026 website launch of UFC Ignite meals, a brand-new meal delivery subscription program engineered by the UFC Performance Institute. 

Engineered by the UFC Performance Institute and crafted with chef-designed menus, UFC Ignite meals make it simple to fuel your body and mind without second-guessing. Every meal is scientifically designed to deliver the perfect balance of nutrients, supporting your unique health and fitness goals while bringing mouthwatering flavor to every bite.

For every food packaging photoshoot, I always ask the culinary team to provide the exact amounts of each ingredient featured in each meal. Weighing out ingredients precisely when photographing recipes for packaged foods is critical for several reasons, both practical and visual:

1. Consistency and Accuracy

Packaged foods often come with strict nutritional and serving guidelines. Using the exact weights ensures that the recipe depicted in photography matches what’s on the packaging. This prevents misleading the consumer and protects the brand’s credibility. 

2. Visual Balance

Food styling is as much about aesthetics as accuracy. Weighing ingredients ensures each element of the dish appears in the right proportion. Too much or too little of an ingredient can make a plate look awkward or unbalanced. 

3. Replicability

Clients, photographers, and food stylists need to recreate the setup consistently across multiple shoots. By weighing ingredients, the shot can be reproduced exactly for social media campaigns, packaging, or advertisements, maintaining brand uniformity. 

4. Highlighting Key Ingredients

For packaged foods, certain ingredients are selling points, like proteins, vegetables, or grains. Weighing and measuring them ensures they appear prominently in the frame without overwhelming or underrepresenting other elements.

Once the ingredients are weighed, I carefully assemble the dish, layering each element with both intention and visual appeal—ensuring that a consumer can instantly recognize the meal at a glance on the package. After my scale, the tool I reach for most often is my culinary tweezers; precision is everything. Micro-adjustments, subtle tweaks, and small “futzing” are the heart of packaging food photography. While these shoots move at a slow, deliberate pace, I find the methodical attention to detail meditative and satisfying. Knowing this image will appear in print—far more permanent than a digital asset—makes it worth being obsessively meticulous