R&D Food Scientist

About the role

This company is a growing premium dessert manufacturer expanding its product development capabilities and production capacity. In this hands-on role, you’ll join a lean R&D team and help develop and improve dessert products, including pies and other baked offerings. You’ll spend much of your time formulating and building products, while also working closely with production and quality teams to troubleshoot issues at the plant.

Responsibilities

• Develop and refine dessert products through hands-on formulation, bench work, and production trials.
• Build and evaluate products, document formulas and results, and support product development projects.
• Work with production leads to troubleshoot product and process issues, including scaling formulas and recommending adjustments.
• Partner closely with Quality to evaluate new products, production deviations, and product quality.
• Use critical thinking and sound judgment to investigate problems, identify contributing factors, and recommend practical solutions.
• Help maintain accurate production and product information in the company’s ERP system during its transition to a new platform.
• Adapt priorities as needed to support day-to-day production operations.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Food Science or a closely related field.
• 2+ years of experience in food manufacturing, ideally in product development, R&D, or another role with direct production-floor support.
• Experience in bakery, pastry, dessert, or a related food category preferred.
• Practical baking skills and a good understanding of product quality and sensory evaluation.
• Strong critical-thinking skills, curiosity, and the ability to give detailed, thoughtful answers when solving problems.

Schedule

Monday–Friday, standard working hours. Some flexibility required to work overtime to meet production needs.

Pay

Salary $80,000–$90,000 per year, depending on experience.

Benefits

Kelly offers eligible employees voluntary benefit plans including medical, dental, vision, telemedicine, term life, whole life, accident insurance, critical illness, a legal plan, and short-term disability. As a Kelly employee, you will have access to a retirement savings plan, service bonus and holiday pay plans (earn up to eight paid holidays per benefit year), and a transit spending account. In addition, employees are entitled to earn paid sick leave under the applicable state or local plan.