Seasonings Scientist/Research Chef

About the Role

Join IFF, a global leader in flavors, fragrances, food ingredients, and health & biosciences, to create innovative seasoning and culinary solutions that elevate everyday products and delight consumers worldwide. This on-site role, based in Carrollton, Texas (5 days a week), offers the opportunity to work within a creative, customer-focused, and solution-oriented team.

Responsibilities

• Develop and optimize seasoning blends, dry mixes, coatings, marinades, sauces, and flavor delivery systems across various food categories.
• Create finished food applications and prototypes to demonstrate seasoning performance, functionality, and consumer appeal.
• Translate customer briefs into commercially viable solutions through formulation development, culinary expertise, and food science knowledge.
• Conduct bench-top development, pilot plant trials, and scale-up activities to support successful commercialization.
• Lead customer tastings, culinary demonstrations, innovation sessions, and ideation workshops to showcase product concepts and capabilities.
• Design and execute experiments to evaluate flavor performance, ingredient functionality, shelf life, stability, and processing requirements.
• Partner with customers and internal stakeholders to troubleshoot technical challenges and provide recommendations that support business growth.
• Collaborate with manufacturing, quality, procurement, regulatory, marketing, sales, and product development teams to ensure successful product launches.
• Monitor market trends, emerging flavors, consumer insights, and culinary techniques to drive innovation and strengthen project pipelines.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Food Science, Culinary Science, Culinary Arts, Food Technology, or a related discipline.
• Minimum of 8 years of experience in food product development, seasoning development, savory applications, culinary innovation, or related areas.
• Professional culinary experience with demonstrated expertise in food preparation, recipe development, and application creation.
• Strong knowledge of seasoning systems, ingredient functionality, flavor technologies, and food manufacturing processes.
• Experience supporting customer-facing projects, product commercialization activities, and cross-functional collaboration.
• Understanding of sensory evaluation methods, product optimization, and experimental design.
• Knowledge of food safety, labeling requirements, quality systems, and regulatory compliance within the food industry.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, organizational, and communication skills.
• Ability to travel up to 25% as required to support customer engagements, plant trials, and business initiatives.

Preferred Qualifications

• Culinary certification and/or formal culinary training.
• Prior working experience in an R&D corporate environment.
• Experience developing seasonings, coatings, marinades, sauces, snack seasonings, or protein-based food applications.
• Advanced degree in Food Science or a related technical discipline.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage.
• 401(k) retirement plan.
• Paid vacation and holidays.
• 16 weeks of paid parental leave.
• Annual incentive plan.
• Career development opportunities.
• Commuter benefits.
• Tuition reimbursement incentives.

About IFF

IFF is a global leader in taste, scent, and nutrition, offering a broad range of natural solutions and accelerating growth through innovation. We value diversity and inclusion, fostering an environment where colleagues can bring their authentic selves to work. Learn more at IFF.com/careers/workplace-diversity-and-inclusion.