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The Museum of Food and Drink, which is opening its first brick-and-mortar location this fall, wants to change how you think about what you eat.

Take, for example, the hamburger. Peter Kim, the museum’s executive director, starts his story with the tale of the bun — a sort of marvel that dates back to the dawn of civilization, he said. Tomatoes harvested by hand inspire another conversation about farm labor conditions. Pickles are the product of micro-organisms at work, digesting sugar in cucumbers and producing lactic acid. Then there’s the beef patty: the culmination of an incredible number of resources, not to mention ethical baggage.

“It could be kind of an overwhelming amount to process,” Mr. Kim said, “but it’s fun to think about this kind of stuff.”

Fun is at the heart of the approach from the museum, which is opening its first permanent location, Mofad Lab, on Oct. 28 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Its debut exhibition, “Flavor: Making It and Faking It,” is a multisensory take on what Mr. Kim called the little-known story of the flavor industry.

Mr. Kim said there isn’t really a precedent for what Mofad aims to do. Other food museums specifically target history, objects or single types of food, like ramen. “But there is not a major museum that looks at food and drink writ large,” he added. Mofad will take on commerce, science and production in addition to the more familiar consumption and cooking.

It’s an ambitious undertaking, Mr. Kim said, adding that a fully realized museum is still some years away. Mofad Lab, a 5,000-square-foot space that can host one exhibition at a time, is the first step. “When you think of the full museum as a restaurant, Mofad Lab is a test kitchen,” he said.

The museum has been in the works for more than a decade. Mr. Kim was a full-time lawyer and part-time culinary school student when he first heard Dave Arnold, the culinary innovator and founder of Mofad, speak about his ideas for the museum during a dinner at Del Posto. Mr. Kim helped out and eventually quit his job to take on the full-time duty of creating a museum from scratch. “I can think back to 2012, doing Google searches for ‘How do you start a museum?’,” he said.

The public got its first taste of the museum in 2013 with the pop-up exhibition “Boom! The Puffing Gun and the Rise of Cereal” at the Summer Streets Festival. Mofad Lab is the next step on the road to a larger permanent space — about 30,000 square feet — that could hold three shows and a restaurant, if not more. Beyond that, Mr. Kim sees even more room for growth. “Food deserves a museum on the scale of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” he said optimistically.