Essential Duties & Responsibilities

Product Development & Innovation

• Lead new product development, product improvements, line extensions, and formula optimization initiatives aligned with business strategy, customer requirements, and manufacturing capabilities.

• Translate customer briefs, market opportunities, operational constraints, and commercial priorities into actionable R&D project plans.

• Conduct and oversee benchtop development, pilot trials, plant trials, product testing, sensory evaluations, and shelf-life studies.

• Develop formulas, processing parameters, product specifications, ingredient standards, and finished product requirements.

• Evaluate emerging ingredients, technologies, processing methods, and market trends to strengthen the product pipeline and improve product performance.

• Maintain accurate R&D documentation, including formulas, trial reports, test results, approvals, specifications, and change records.

Food Safety, Quality & Regulatory Compliance

• Ensure all product development activities comply with FDA/FSMA requirements, GMPs, HACCP or food safety plans, allergen controls, labeling requirements, customer standards, and internal quality systems.

• Partner with QA and Regulatory to approve ingredients, claims, labels, specifications, nutritional information, and finished product requirements.

• Support audit readiness by maintaining complete, accurate, and traceable technical documentation for products, ingredients, suppliers, and processes.

• Assess product and process risks related to food safety, allergens, labeling, microbial stability, shelf life, and customer requirements.

• Support investigations and corrective actions related to product quality, customer complaints, holds, deviations, and formula or process issues.

Commercialization & Scale-Up

• Lead commercialization activities from concept approval through full-scale production launch, including project timelines, trial plans, risk assessments, and launch readiness reviews.

• Coordinate plant trials, process validations, first production runs, and post-launch reviews in partnership with Operations, QA, Sanitation, Maintenance, Procurement, and Supply Chain.

• Develop and validate processing parameters, yields, batch instructions, allergen controls, packaging requirements, and quality checkpoints for new or revised products.

• Identify commercialization risks and develop mitigation plans related to equipment capability, ingredient availability, sanitation/changeover needs, labor impact, throughput, shelf life, and cost.

• Ensure effective capacity planning, labor deployment, line balancing, and sanitation/changeover optimization to minimize downtime and risk.

Ingredient, Supplier & Cost Optimization

• Partner with Procurement and suppliers to evaluate new ingredients, alternate sources, ingredient functionality, cost impacts, lead times, and quality risks.

• Support cost savings, margin improvement, and supply continuity through formula optimization, ingredient substitutions, yield improvement, and waste reduction.

• Review raw material specifications, supplier documentation, certificates of analysis, and technical data to ensure alignment with product and regulatory requirements.

• Maintain awareness of ingredient trends, regulatory developments, customer expectations, and competitive product activity.

Technical Leadership & Continuous Improvement

• Serve as a technical subject matter expert for formulas, product functionality, processing behavior, troubleshooting, and product performance.

• Lead structured problem solving for formula, process, quality, sensory, shelf-life, and manufacturing performance issues.

• Support continuous improvement initiatives related to yield, waste, labor efficiency, product consistency, sanitation effectiveness, and customer satisfaction.

• Provide technical training and guidance to Operations, QA, Sanitation, Maintenance, and Commercial teams on new products, revised processes, and critical product attributes.

Project Management & Cross-Functional Execution

• Manage multiple R&D and commercialization projects simultaneously, ensuring clear priorities, milestones, owners, risks, and decision points.

• Partner with Commercial and customer-facing teams to assess feasibility, respond to customer requests, prepare samples, support presentations, and communicate technical considerations.

• Coordinate with Finance and Operations to evaluate product costs, yields, labor impact, equipment constraints, and margin expectations.

• Communicate project status, technical risks, launch readiness, and resource needs to leadership and cross-functional stakeholders.

People Leadership & Culture

• Build, coach, and develop technical talent within R&D and related project teams.

• Set clear expectations for documentation discipline, project execution, food safety awareness, technical rigor, and accountability.

• Foster a culture of innovation, collaboration, practical problem solving, ownership, and continuous improvement.

• Partner with HR and leadership on workforce planning, talent development, succession planning, and organizational capability for the R&D function.

Cross-Functional & External Collaboration

• Partner closely with Sales, Marketing, Operations, Quality, Regulatory, Procurement, Supply Chain, Engineering, Sanitation, and Finance to align technical execution with business needs.

• Serve as a technical representative in customer meetings, product reviews, commercialization discussions, audits, and supplier interactions as needed.

• Support customer onboarding, new product introductions, scale-up activities, product troubleshooting, and technical communications.