Product Developer

We are a growing Italian food importer, a business we are very proud of and we are looking to have a Product Developer join our expanding New Product Development team.

In this new role, you will be working alongside two established Product Developers and reporting into the Development Director.

Your primary purpose is to assist in managing multiple categories, food manufacturing partners and retail accounts to ensure we stay ahead of the market. The role responsibilities will include, but will not be limited to:

• Co-ordinating product development requests and samples;
• Assisting with ad hoc requests from customers; samples for magazines, Brandbank, packaging samples for merchandising etc.;
• Actively seeking out new trends and ideas for products and ranges;
• Supporting internal and external product tastings; cooking and preparing product samples for the client, managing samples inventory and buying samples;
• Gather data of competitor product ranges; maintain up to date documents to include but not exhaustive of; packaging material, packaging design, ingredients, and nutritional data;
• Benchmark products against competitors, evaluate and if not best in class, work up a plan to improve;

To fill this role, we are looking for someone with:

• At least 2 years’ UK food development experience;
• Solid understanding of retail;
• Innovative mindset with a proven track record of spotting category gaps and launching sustainable NPD;
• Adaptability and resilience;
• Passion for food (of course!) and in-depth knowledge of food trends;
• Flexibility to travel as required within the UK and Europe;
• A full driving license; and
• Ability to work as part of the NPD and wider team, supporting one another, being a team player, sharing your knowledge openly.

If you are interested in finding out more about joining our fast-growing business, please apply today!