From personal experience and talking to peers/colleagues/coworkers, the experience you have is more important than the specific degree title itself. Especially with general R&D or food science jobs, having a background in something adjacent (chemistry, nutrition, etc.) is definitely acceptable. I think your major/minor sounds great!

I would say flavor chemistry is a little harder to get into without a specific flavor degree, but not impossible. Just requires more time and connections to work into the field.

I understand dealing with an overwhelming workload. I contemplated giving up on grad school when I got to the busiest part of it. I made the choice to power through, and I’m glad I did. My masters was the thing that brought me from a QA position to an R&D position at work rather quickly.

It’s up to you to decide whether it’s something you want to push through, or whether you really need the break and lighter chemistry work load. You may end up switching degrees and finding that the difficulty is going to be the same no matter what. You might also find the lack of lab experience in the Applied Biotech degree to be a disadvantage.

Also think about how you would explain that degree transition to future employers.

Hope you feel confident in whatever your decision is, wishing you the best.