Senior Product Development Technologist

Primary Purpose:

With management guidance the PD Scientist, completes difficult technical assignments which require a knowledge of, and experience in, the discipline. Applies initiative and creativity in assignments. May provide technical direction to, or may supervise, lower level team members. Progressively establishes own work schedule and research plans under general supervision. Will recommend changes in practices and procedures. May be called upon to provide technical expertise to other staff members and may have frequent customer contact.

Key roles and responsibilities:

• Lead and direct the activities of the Flavous Solutions and Consumer Research and Development team from concept and recipe development to trial and factory validation and commerical production. Work effectively with cross-fuctional network to ensure NPD executed with excellence. In alignment with the R&D Director India and SEA ensure resources are appropriately deployed against development projects which support the strategic plan for growth and profit improvement.
• Understands the principles of designing for food safety and quality. Familiar with food microbiology and common food pathogens. Able to provide guidance to more junior members of the team. Knows how to formulate food to ensure shelf stability and food safety. Can establish product quality specifications in collaboration with the quality department. Able to plan and conduct shelf-life testing and communicate requirements clearly to technicians or supporting team members. Is aware of customer specific food safety and quality requirements and knows to seek support if required when developing products.
• Consistently delivers PD briefs as per customer requirements with a moderate understanding of formulation implications on production process and product quality. With guidance can mitigate risks. Consistently delivers PD briefs as per customer requirements with a moderate understanding of formulation implications on production process and product quality. With guidance can mitigate risks.
• Able to independently establish a hypothesis and set up an experiment to solve straight forward problems and test simple variables relating to product design. Can apply simple statistics to determine significance of experimental results. Able to complete the development of a product formulation and production process design and provide guidance on selection of production line and site. Able to co-ordinate a cross functional FRA/Trial meeting and run a production line trial. Able to identify formulation and trial issues and proactively seek out assistance to resolve issues. Understand specific customers product, food safety and regulatory requirements and use in product design. Has a basic understanding of factory design and considers batch size, yield, pre-weigh process and manufacturing process flow when designing formulations and production processes. Will consult cross functionally during product design.
• Able to search for and find relevant and useful past and new information and use it to define the next research step. Able to collate and report data without supervision.

Key Skills & Experience:

• 7+ years Product Development experience.
• Knowledge and experience in a variety of categories - For example Herbs, Spices, Condiments, Sauces, Coating, Seasonings and Flavouring. Experience with Wet/Sauce science/technology would be highly regarded.
• The job requires attention to detail in making evaluative judgements based on the analysis of factual information.
• They are expected to resolve problems by identifying and selecting solutions through the application of acquired technical experience.