Food Scientist II

Summary

The Food Scientist II – Ingredient and Foodservice focus is responsible for leading research, development, scale-up, and commercialization of new products, as initiated by external customers or internal partners. The focus is primarily on (but exclusively limited to) ingredient and foodservice products. The role collaborates cross-functionally with Operations, Engineering, Quality, Procurement, Marketing, Sales, Supply Chain, and co-manufacturers.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Serves as the R&D lead for Salesforce opportunities, including custom sample requests, benchtop development, plant trials, and customer-focused innovation projects.
• Provides technical support through formulation, application testing, experimentation, and technical presentations to address customer needs and product performance challenges.
• Researches customer applications, market trends, and product attributes to identify opportunities that support growth of branded and custom product offerings.
• Facilitates product scale-up and commercialization activities through first production runs, ensuring alignment across R&D, operations, and commercial teams. This includes bench-top formulation, pilot-scale & plant-scale execution both internally and at co-manufacturer locations.
• Leads and supports product development activities including formulation development and optimization, ingredient evaluation, process validation, and troubleshooting.
• Partners with Operations on process improvement initiatives, alternate ingredient sourcing, manufacturing efficiencies, and validation testing.
• Collaborates with vendors and suppliers to evaluate ingredients, equipment, and technical specifications supporting development and commercialization efforts.
• Creates research protocols/standard operating procedures, technical reports, and commercialization documents.
• Coordinates informal and formal product evaluations and assessments to support product quality, performance, internal project direction, and consumer acceptance.
• Owes design, development, execution and report writing for product development trials, sensory evaluation, and shelf-life results, partnering with Sensory Team, Quality, and others where necessary.
• Ensures compliance with company safety, GMP, HACCP, and plant policies during product development, trials, and manufacturing activities.
• Supports achievement of departmental and company objectives through execution of R&D initiatives, project management, and cross-functional collaboration.
• Maintains confidentiality of proprietary company and customer formulations, ingredients, processes, and development projects.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Food Science, Dairy Science, Food Chemistry, or Food Engineering, required. Master’s degree preferred.
• Equivalent combination of education and experience will also be considered.
• 2-5 years of experience in food product development or manufacturing, required.
• Strong background in pilot and plant scale-up required.
• Experience with yogurt, cottage cheese, natural cheese, dairy processing, sensory, or with converting and packaging equipment, desirable.