The Palisades wildfires incinerated their lab. Now, they’re coming to New Mexico to rebuild their startup.

The Palisades Fire burned down Monica and Ben Odell’s home and laboratory, where the husband-and-wife pair were working on a technology aimed at shaking up the food industry.

“It has just been a lot of getting things back on track,” said Monica Odell, co-founder of the startup PXL8 Powders. “It is a good lesson in non-attachment.”

Following the loss, the couple has plans to build their company in New Mexico — where Monica Odell was born and raised — and adapt her doctoral research in pharmaceutical sciences to converting liquids into shelf-stable powders.

While some ingredients, such as pepper, are dried and ground, other flavor blends require additional work to become shelf-stable. The couple is patenting a cold-pressed technique that avoids heat and water waste normally associated with making flavor blends, creating products ranging from enhanced baking mixes to green smoothie powders.

“There is a big wave now with more interest in sustainability and waterless products,” Monica Odell said.

Ben Odell said their technique in making powders is a shift from the current industry standard — a spray-drying method, in which a flavor is sprayed with a sugary starch called maltodextrin and heated until the moisture evaporates, leaving behind a seasoned powder.

The heating process can often dull flavors, which is why things like lemon extract come in liquid form, Monica Odell added. But keeping extracts liquid can be expensive from a shipping and handling standpoint.

That is where the appeal of a cold-pressed process comes into play.

“It is just being able to make ingredients a little more robust,” Monica Odell said.

The startup, founded in 2024, has already gotten off to a fast start. PXL8 Powders won $5,000 in the Scale Up New Mexico pitch competition last year. Monica Odell also participated in the regional Startup World Cup pitch competition to showcase PXL8 Powders’ technology, said Jameson MacDonnell, an enterprise adviser with New Mexico State University’s Arrowhead Center.

MacDonnell said Monica Odell is “one of the best formulation scientists” he knows.

Monica Odell first encountered cold pressing in her pharmaceutical research and decided the technology had a use outside of medicine. While her cold-pressed tech will initially focus on the culinary world, she hopes to expand it to industries like cosmetics and supplements.

The flavor samples are being made in a lab in the Netherlands since the fires burned Monica Odell’s lab down.

One thing Monica Odell hopes to get on track is a 2025 public showing of what PXL8 does. She aims to have something ready for Balloon Fiesta.

The Odells plan to sell the technology to contract manufacturers and flavor houses. But they also want to work with local farmers and, maybe, start a brand.

“There are other yet-to-be-disclosed applications that could open up completely new kinds of products,” Ben Odell said.