R&D Manager

Position Overview

A leading food manufacturer is seeking an experienced R&D Manager to lead product development, innovation, commercialization, and process improvement initiatives within a high-volume manufacturing environment. This individual will manage and develop a small technical R&D team while serving as a key technical leader across product development, manufacturing, quality, and commercialization activities.

The R&D Manager will be responsible for advancing new and existing bakery, dough, refrigerated, and frozen food products, taking projects from early-stage formulation and bench development through plant trials, scale-up, commercialization, and full production. The position requires someone who can balance strategic leadership with hands-on technical problem-solving and collaborate effectively with Operations, Engineering, Quality, Supply Chain, Procurement, Sales, and Marketing.

This is an ideal opportunity for an R&D leader who enjoys working closely with manufacturing, developing technical talent, and translating customer and business needs into commercially successful products.

Key Responsibilities

R&D Leadership & Team Development

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of R&D and technical product development professionals.
• Establish team priorities, goals, project timelines, and performance expectations.
• Mentor employees in product development, formulation, manufacturing processes, troubleshooting, and commercialization.
• Evaluate team capabilities, workloads, and resource requirements to ensure projects remain aligned with business priorities.
• Promote a collaborative, accountable, safety-focused, and continuous-improvement culture.
• Encourage data-driven decision-making and structured technical problem-solving across the R&D organization.

Product Development & Innovation

• Lead the development and optimization of bakery, dough-based, refrigerated, and frozen food products.
• Manage product formulation, ingredient selection, processing parameters, packaging considerations, shelf-life improvements, and product performance.
• Identify opportunities to improve existing products through quality enhancements, cost optimization, waste reduction, sustainability, and improved manufacturability.
• Evaluate new ingredients, processing technologies, equipment, and industry trends to identify opportunities for innovation.
• Translate customer, consumer, and commercial needs into technically feasible new products.
• Ensure new products can successfully transition from laboratory development through pilot and full-scale manufacturing.

Commercialization & Project Management

• Manage multiple R&D and commercialization projects from initial concept through successful launch.
• Establish project timelines, milestones, technical requirements, resources, priorities, and risk-management plans.
• Lead plant trials, scale-up activities, process validations, and production start-ups.
• Work cross-functionally with Operations, Quality, Engineering, Supply Chain, Procurement, Sales, and Marketing to ensure successful execution.
• Communicate project status, technical risks, challenges, and recommendations to key stakeholders and senior leadership.
• Provide technical expertise for strategic customer initiatives and customer-facing discussions when needed.

Manufacturing & Process Improvement

• Partner directly with plant Operations and Engineering teams to improve product quality, manufacturing efficiency, yield, and overall process performance.
• Troubleshoot formulation, ingredient, processing, and production challenges.
• Provide hands-on technical support during manufacturing trials, scale-up, and new product launches.
• Identify and implement opportunities to reduce manufacturing waste and product costs while maintaining quality and functionality.
• Ensure products and processes are designed with full-scale manufacturability in mind.
• Use manufacturing data, testing results, and technical observations to drive continuous improvement activities.

Quality, Food Safety & Regulatory

• Ensure R&D activities comply with applicable food safety, quality, regulatory, labeling, and customer requirements.
• Partner with Quality teams to maintain product standards and address technical or manufacturing challenges.
• Assess technical, operational, regulatory, and commercialization risks associated with new product development.
• Maintain accurate formulations, specifications, testing protocols, commercialization documentation, and technical records.
• Support audits, customer requirements, and regulatory activities when necessary.
• Stay current on food industry regulations, emerging technologies, ingredients, manufacturing practices, and competitive activity.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Food Science, Food Engineering, Product Development, or a related technical discipline.
• Approximately 5-10 years of progressive experience within food R&D, product development, commercialization, or a related technical function.
• Previous experience managing and developing technical employees or cross-functional teams.
• Experience within bakery, dough manufacturing, refrigerated foods, frozen foods, or closely related food categories is strongly preferred.
• Proven experience taking products from formulation and development through scale-up and commercialization.
• Strong familiarity with food manufacturing operations, quality systems, and food safety requirements.
• Master's degree is a plus but not required.

Key Skills & Experience

The successful candidate will bring strong technical knowledge of food formulation, ingredients, bakery or dough systems, food chemistry, sensory science, processing, and manufacturing. Experience troubleshooting products directly within a production environment is highly valuable.

Candidates should also demonstrate:

• Strong people leadership, coaching, and team-development skills.
• Knowledge of food product development and commercialization processes.
• Experience managing multiple technical projects simultaneously.
• Strong project prioritization and resource-management capabilities.
• Ability to collaborate effectively across technical, manufacturing, and commercial teams.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities.
• Excellent written, verbal, and presentation skills.
• Ability to communicate technical information clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• A hands-on approach and willingness to spend time in laboratory, pilot, and manufacturing environments.
• A strong customer-focused and continuous-improvement mindset.

Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidate is a hands-on R&D leader with strong bakery or food manufacturing experience who is equally comfortable developing a product at the bench, supporting a plant trial, troubleshooting a production challenge, leading a commercialization project, and coaching a technical team.

This person should be able to operate effectively in a fast-paced manufacturing organization where priorities can shift quickly. The strongest candidates will combine technical depth with practical business judgment and understand how formulation, ingredients, processing conditions, manufacturing equipment, quality, cost, and customer expectations work together to create commercially successful products.

Some travel may be required to support manufacturing locations, customers, suppliers, technical partners, and industry events.