Food Tech Scientist

Position Summary

The Food Tech Scientist will bring knowledge of food and research techniques to help support R&D product and process improvement efforts. The Scientist will use education and experience to create designs of experiment to show how a change can create a financial savings or give other value to the company.

This role is a full-time, permanent position on our R&D and Food Science team that works a 40-hour work week at assign site. The individual in this role must be available to work additional hours and weekends during peak seasons, and on 2 nd shift, as needed.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Complete projects as determined by the Director of R&D and Food Science which may include:

• Process Research and Optimization

• Understand processes performed in production setting and suggest ways to improve either efficiency or product quality improvement
• Interface with stakeholders to generate money saving ideas.
• Follow through on changes made to products in production setting
• Equipment
• Serves on Equipment team to identify new product needs, helps determine pre-ROI (Return on Investment)
• Serves on Implementation team on all new equipment to watch that products integrity and quality is not changed
• Shelf-Life
• Designs tests to determine shelf-life of products produced in food group, collects and interprets data to make shelf-life recommendations
• Ingredient Research and Product Optimization
• Research clean label ingredients to improve products
• Specify and test ingredients for product optimization
• Design of tests to validate improvements
• Benchtop creation of test samples
• Collection of qualitative and quantitative data for inference and to verify findings
• New Product Development
• Assist in the development of new products for all areas but not limited to: e-commerce, wholesale, or sister companies
• Development includes but is not limited to: ideation, bench-top development, shelf- life testing, and shipping
• Assist when necessary, at scale up, production tests, product roll-out, and full production

• Interface with Food Production
  • Review weekly Food Production schedule
  • Maintain regular and frequent contact with Food Production and Quality Assurance
• Administrative tasks
  • Uses TraceGains system to create new finished product specifications
    • Evaluate specifications to ensure correctness
    • Approves specifications
  • Develop and implement new forms as needed
  • Maintain orderly filing storage of pertinent documentation and notes.
• Special Projects as directed
  • Kaizen/Tiger Events
  • Research of ingredients, packaging, processes and other topics
  • Attend classes and seminars to expand knowledge and skills

• Bachelors Degree in Bakery Food Engineering, Food Science, Culinary Science, Chemistry or Biology or related field of study or equivalent
• Minimum of 2 years of work experience, preferably in food manufacturing
• Specialized culinary training preferred
• Proficient in all programs in Microsoft Office Suite
• Oracle experience preferred, but not required
• TraceGains experience preferred, but not required
• HACCP training preferred, but not required