R&D Food Scientist

Join a Mission That Matters – Enrich Lives with Butterball® Farms

At Butterball® Farms, we’re more than a world-class food manufacturer — we’re a company on a mission: to Enrich Lives. For over 60 years, we’ve proudly partnered with the world’s premier food brands to deliver innovative, value-added butter products. But our impact goes far beyond the food industry.

Recognized globally for our excellence and named one of West Michigan’s Best and Brightest Companies, we invest deeply in our people, our communities, and our future. From fostering innovation and personal growth to supporting local neighborhoods, we believe success starts with a strong, supportive workplace.

When you join Butterball® Farms, you’re joining a team that values growth, innovation, and making a difference — together.

What We Offer

At Butterball® Farms, we believe that when our people grow, our company grows. That’s why we’re proud to offer a comprehensive and competitive benefits package designed to support your success — both on and off the job.

• Opportunities for Growth & Advancement Build your career in an environment that encourages development and internal promotion.
• Innovative & Inclusive Culture Join a workplace that celebrates innovation, continuous improvement, personal growth, and diversity.
• Paid Time Off Enjoy paid vacation and holidays to support work-life balance.
• 401(k) with Company Match Plan for your future with our generous retirement savings program.
• Tuition Reimbursement Continue your education with financial support for approved programs.
• Access to The Source Get connected to community resources, support services, and more.
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) Confidential support for personal, family, or work-related issues.
• Comprehensive Benefits Plan Includes Medical, Dental, Vision, Critical Illness, Flexible Spending Accounts, Dependent Care, and Accident Insurance.

Position Summary

The Food Scientist leads assigned product-development projects from concept and

bench formulation through plant trials and commercialization, while providing

technical support for existing products. This hands-on, customer-focused role turns

ideas into products that meet expectations for flavor, functionality, food safety,

quality, cost, and manufacturing consistency.

The position collaborates closely with Sales, Marketing, Operations, Engineering,

Procurement, and Food Safety & Quality. The role supports BBF’s collaborative

development approach, which connects customer needs, sample development,

refinement, and manufacturing scale-up

Key Responsibilities

• Provide research, data analysis and summary of information on a variety of projects, processes, ingredients, and packaging to assist in the development of potential new product for customers and Butterball Farms.
• Maintain the organization and management of current R&D formulations file and nutritional data base.
• Generate product information and nutritional data on Labelcalc system
• Submit draft R&D formulations and reformulations to accounting for costing
• Obtain and utilize working knowledge of current ingredient inventory.
• Accountable for the sample request process from calendar scheduling through sample generation, packaging, and shipping
• Implement the customer’s request for information on formal sites and portals such as PLM, SafetyChain, Tracegains, Repositrak, Rizepoint and others.
• Work with the teams – Ops, Sales, Purchasing, (cross-functional teams) and Quality to commercialize new SKUs, including the sourcing of ingredients, ingredient approval, supplier approval, process development, process control, packaging, labeling and HACCP integration through the customer evaluation process.
• Assure an integrated Quality Systems approach to assure that new products are designed for food quality and food safety
• Align with engineering and quality/food safety to research and identify needed equipment related to a new process or process improvement.
• Work with purchasing to maintain current ingredient supply list and appropriate substitutions
• Maintain an understanding and working knowledge of current process equipment capabilities as well as improvement needs and plans.
• Support sales and customer confidence by meeting with current and potential customers on behalf of R&D.
• Be an available resource for Food Safety Assessments
• Support sensory panel development and testing.
• Create recipes utilizing current and proposed products and new formulations.
• Use creativity and innovation to solve production related issues.
• Study flavor and flavor utilization and basic culinary science
• Cultivate and maintain cooperative working relationships with the multi-functional team members.
• Maintain a grasp of current food ingredient functions for use in product development.
• Encourage the culture of Food Safety and Quality.