Commercial Development Chef

Job Title

Commercial Development Chef

Job Purpose

We are looking for a true foodie with a special combination of creative flair and manufacturing production savvy, to support us in our mission to better nourish people, animals and planet. This exciting new role in our Consumer Foods business will be instrumental in shaping and bringing to life our future innovation pipeline. Inspire us with your ability to connect to food and consumer trends, wow us with concepts and prototypes to bring this to life and support us to turn these into nutritious, safe, and commercially viable products, to delight consumers at home and on the go.

Key responsibilities

• Be closely attuned to food trends and be able to bring these to life to inspire internal stakeholders.
• Understand and interpret consumer insight and use this to inform ideation, concept development and prototype creation.
• Create and develop new concepts and recipes in line with business strategy.
• Take an influential role in the development of the future innovation pipeline.
• Participate as a product expert in cross-functional project team meetings.
• Develop factory friendly products and liaise closely with process technologists during factory trials (third party or in house) to optimise recipes and products for commercial manufacture, problem solving along the way. Attend first production runs to ensure products are manufactured as intended to the required standard.
• Build relationships with third party manufacturers and suppliers.
• Liaise with technical team to ensure products are safe, and complaint with the relevant regulatory frameworks.
• Run, interpret and respond to the findings of sensory panels, organoleptic trials, taste tests and other consumer research.
• Develop product costs. Document, maintain and communicate the financial impact of changing recipes within the product development process.
• Input to product specs and produce samples for customer presentations.

Person Spec

• Formal training as a chef (or comparable qualification) and a minimum of two years recent experience developing fast moving consumer goods in the food industry.
• A track record of taking ownership to bring exciting new food concepts to market.
• Experience developing packaging solutions would be an advantage.
• A true foodie, with a passion for delighting consumers with delicious, nutritious products.
• A thirst for uncovering consumer insights and building brand equity. Alert to consumer trends, competitor activity and the changing external environment.
• Able to switch gears comfortably from ideation, to concept creation, to commercial implementation.
• Thrives in a fast-moving environment, combining proactive and reactive workloads and confident in juggling multiple priorities.
• Able to worth together with others - building strong, enduring, effective stakeholder relationships within project teams, the wider business and external partners.
• A creative thinker, and problem solver.
• Action orientated, with excellent time management skills.
• Numerate and confident in costing recipes and ingredients.
• This role will be based in North Scarle where our development kitchen is located, and reports to the Marketing & Innovation Director. There will be UK travel required in this role, for example to manufacturing sites.