R&D Food Scientist

Key Responsibilities

• Provide project leadership in the development in conjunction with the Culinary team and commercialization of new products, product improvement, and cost savings
• Work on multiple interdisciplinary projects, developing and implementing plans, and coordinate resources to achieve goals.
• Design and execute experiments, analyze, and interpret data to make sound technical recommendations for specific projects.
• Develop process specifications, ensuring training and transfer of specification knowledge to QA and Operations.
• Research and gain thorough understanding and knowledge of emerging technologies in product and ingredient technologies.
• Support Operations and QA to resolve ingredient, formula, process issues and manage product/process changes.
• Provide technical support with Culinary team on product information and process capability.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams on implementing new products, new equipment or new processes.
• Provide formula and process specifications on bench working with Culinary team and translating that to on floor processes and support to assure smooth rollouts of new products, equipment and/or processes.
• Lead continuous improvement initiatives that enhance the new product development process by; actively participating in and encouraging continuous improvement to enhance our win rate, reduce our costs, improve our new product scale up and expedite our speed to market

Qualifications

• Degree in Food Science / Food Engineering with a strong functional Baking Science background bachelor's 0 to 5 years' experience required, with strong preference for internships or co-ops with food manufacturers in lieu of prior industry experience
• Experience with working on new products through concept, prototyping and commercialization within a manufacturing environment.
• Recipe / Formulation and raw material knowledge / experience.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Working knowledge of MS Office (Outlook, Word, Excel), SharePoint, ERP systems
• Self-directed with initiative; responsible for managing own projects and ensuring all timelines are met or exceeded
• Ability/willingness to work off hours or extended amounts of time during product scale ups.
• Ability/willingness to travel up to 30% of the time.

About the Role

Dessert Holdings is North America's fastest-growing premium dessert company, bringing unparalleled dessert experiences to both retail and foodservice customers. The company, headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, is a collection of premium dessert companies and brands: Steven Charles, The Original Cakerie, Lawler's Desserts, Atlanta Cheesecake Company, Dianne's Fine Desserts, and Kenny's Great Pies. Dessert Holdings is owned by Bain Capital, employing more than 3,200 people across nine North American manufacturing facilities.