Sr. Food Scientist, Product Development

About the role

Just Food Company is seeking a Senior Food Scientist, Product Development to lead the development, commercialization, and continuous improvement of products across our portfolio, with an initial focus on Just Meat.

Responsibilities

• Drive hands-on bench experimentation to prototype, evaluate, and refine formulations, developing a deep understanding of ingredient functionality and process interactions before advancing products to scale.
• Develop and optimize formulations to improve product quality, nutrition, cost, manufacturability, and overall consumer experience.
• Develop and lead structured development plans, pilot trials, and commercial-scale manufacturing runs, translating experimental learnings into actionable product improvements.
• Define product performance targets and evaluation frameworks that ensure development efforts remain aligned with quality, consumer experience, and commercial objectives.
• Lead the full development lifecycle from concept through commercialization, maintaining hands-on involvement throughout the process to ensure product intent is successfully translated to large-scale production.
• Develop and optimize extrusion parameters, including moisture, temperature, shear, and die configuration, to achieve target texture, structure, and product performance.
• Partner closely with co-manufacturing facilities, spending meaningful time onsite to support production trials, troubleshoot technical challenges, and generate insights that drive formulation and process improvements.
• Conduct root-cause analysis of production, quality, and performance challenges, using findings to inform future product and process development efforts.
• Identify, evaluate, and implement new ingredients, technologies, and manufacturing approaches that expand product capabilities and advance innovation across the portfolio.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Operations, Quality, Supply Chain, and external manufacturing partners to successfully commercialize new products and improve existing ones.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Food Science, Food Engineering, Chemical Engineering, or a related discipline required; advanced degree preferred.
• 5+ years of hands-on food product development, commercialization, or food science experience within a food manufacturing environment.
• Demonstrated success bringing products from benchtop development through pilot and commercial production.
• Strong understanding of ingredient functionality, protein systems, food chemistry, and structure-function relationships.
• Experience designing and executing structured experimentation to solve formulation, processing, and manufacturing challenges.
• Proven ability to translate laboratory findings into commercially scalable manufacturing processes.
• Experience troubleshooting manufacturing environments and driving data-based process improvements.
• Experience working cross-functionally with Product Development, Operations, Quality, and external manufacturing partners.
• Experience with extrusion-based systems, alternative proteins, texturized protein technologies, or comparable food manufacturing processes strongly preferred.
• High-moisture extrusion experience strongly preferred.
• Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills.
• Ability to translate technical insights into practical recommendations for both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Willingness and ability to travel regularly to manufacturing sites.

Qualifications

• Currently located within a commutable distance of our office.
• Authorized to work in the United States.

Benefits

Compensation: The expected base salary range for this role (based in Emeryville, CA) is $150,000 - $175,000. Final compensation and level will be determined based on factors including experience, skills, qualifications, and overall fit for the role.

This is a full-time onsite role based at our headquarters in Emeryville, CA. We are prioritizing candidates are currently located within a commutable distance of our office.

This role requires unrestricted domestic and international travel up to 30%.

Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States. While Just Food Company may consider employment sponsorship on a case-by-case basis, we are unable to support most visa sponsorships at this time.

Just Food Company participates in E-Verify.