Senior Manager, Packaging Research & Development

Principal Essential Duties & Responsibilities

• Champions compliance to all applicable safety, regulatory (USDA/FDA government compliance), GMP requirements in lab, pilot plant, and manufacturing facilities.
• Provides technical consumer/customer knowledge on packaging. Partners with Marketing to understand the consumer, i.e., demographics, basics of product usage, psychology of why products are used, and the trends that impact packaging development.
• Provides direction to packaging personnel in the efficient use of equipment and materials to produce quality products.
• Evaluates and applies new technologies to enhance product packaging, that are relevant to the Company’s product portfolio in support of new product initiatives, cost improvements, quality improvements and technical brand maintenance.
• Demonstrates proficient ability to make tactical decisions on how to best direct activities and assign projects to associates to ensure effective allocation of resources. Champions the NPD process. Provides resource estimates for NPD projects.
• Accountable for training personnel on equipment, processes and Standard Operating Procedures and setting performance standards.
• Works with operations partners to assist with addressing packaging quality and production concerns.
• Pairs with Marketing, Operations and other relevant functions to establish priorities closely aligned with business needs. Maintains an updated project list of current projects being worked on for the assigned business segment.
• Serves as technical interface with cross functional partners in support of new packaging and improvement initiatives.
• Excels at making tactical decisions in support of managing packaging and new material specifications and specification changes and compliance.

Minimum Education and Experience

• Required: Bachelor’s degree in Packaging Science or related discipline plus 10 years related work experiences:
• Should have a minimum of 7 years relevant consumer products and food industry experience.
• Proven track record of Packaging development and commercialization.
• Must be an expert in the product development process from concept through commercialization.
• Should be an outstanding cross-functional team player.
• Able to translate customer/consumer needs and business objectives into innovative new product design requirements.
• Should have excellent communication, detail orientation and organizational skills, along with excellent analytical and presentation skills.
• Should have prior supervisory and project management experience.
• Must be able to travel up to 50% of the time.

Environmental Factors and Physical Requirements

• Position is mostly sedentary but may require occasional moving to other offices or buildings.
• May need to move light equipment or supplies from one place to another.
• May need to access files, supplies and equipment.
• Work activity is in an office, open-partitioned, cubicle environment.
• When in a plant environment:
• Exposure primarily consists of wet and moist floors which include metal and plastic grating surfaces.
• May be exposed to temperatures of 28 degrees to 100 degrees Fahrenheit with both ambient and 100% humidity.
• May handle product 25 degrees to 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
• May be exposed to noise ranges of 50 db to 110 db.
• May be exposed to all chemicals used in poultry, food, processing facility.