Food Scientist

About the role

This Food Scientist role focuses on driving product innovation, customer collaboration, and commercialization within a food manufacturing environment. You will combine hands-on formulation work with direct customer interaction to develop solutions that align with market trends, customer requirements, and business objectives. This position is ideal for someone who enjoys both the technical aspects of product development and the relationship-building involved in working with customers, suppliers, and cross-functional teams.

Responsibilities

• Develop and optimize food formulations for new and existing products, ensuring they meet performance, quality, and cost targets.
• Partner directly with customers to understand product goals, ingredient requirements, nutritional targets, and labeling needs, and translate these into practical formulation solutions.
• Support customer presentations and technical discussions by providing clear, science-based explanations of formulations, processes, and product performance.
• Collaborate closely with Sales to provide technical expertise, recommendations, and timely project updates that support business development efforts.
• Evaluate ingredients, suppliers, and emerging technologies to support innovation and continuous improvement in product offerings.
• Conduct bench-top development and product testing to refine formulations and validate product performance.
• Lead or support scale-up activities from lab to plant, ensuring formulations and processes translate effectively to full production.
• Coordinate and execute plant trials, collect and analyze data, and support commercialization efforts to ensure successful product launches.
• Troubleshoot formulation, processing, and quality challenges, recommending and implementing corrective actions.
• Support nutrition, labeling, and regulatory compliance activities to ensure products meet internal standards and external requirements.
• Monitor market trends, consumer preferences, and competitive activity to identify opportunities for new products and business growth.
• Manage multiple projects simultaneously in a fast-paced environment, balancing technical rigor with timelines and business priorities.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with internal teams, customers, and suppliers to foster collaboration and trust.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Food Science or a related scientific discipline.
• 1–5 years of experience in product development, research and development (R&D), applications, or food manufacturing.
• Strong understanding of food formulation, ingredient functionality, and commercialization processes.
• Experience with gummy or soft chew candy formulation or similar confectionery products.
• Hands-on experience in new product development and R&D within a food manufacturing environment.
• Ability to lead and manage multiple projects in a fast-paced setting while maintaining attention to detail.
• Comfort interacting with customers and supporting business development activities through technical expertise.
• Strong communication and presentation skills, with the ability to explain technical concepts clearly to diverse audiences.
• Proven relationship-building skills with customers, suppliers, and internal cross-functional teams.
• Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot formulation, processing, and quality issues using a structured, data-driven approach.

Work environment

This role is based on-site at a food manufacturing plant in Perham and follows a Monday through Friday, first-shift schedule. You will work as part of a close-knit R&D team of approximately ten people, including three food scientists and additional R&D and application specialists. The environment combines lab-based bench-top development with plant-floor activities such as trials, scale-up, and commercialization. You can expect regular collaboration with Sales, operations, and other cross-functional partners, as well as direct interaction with customers and suppliers. The setting is a professional food manufacturing facility where standard food safety, quality, and hygiene practices apply, and you will work with typical food science tools, equipment, and processes to support formulation, testing, and production.

Pay

The pay range for this position is $55,000.00 – $85,000.00/yr.

Benefits

• Health, dental, vision, 401K
• Company bonus potential and profit sharing opportunity

Schedule & location

This is a Permanent position based out of Perham, MN. This is a fully onsite position with a Monday through Friday, first-shift schedule.