Reporting to the Head of R&D, the Category Product Technologist designs, plans, validates and implements the development of new products, line extension, products renovations within a number of assigned product categories that are in compliance with established safety standards, good manufacturing practices (GMPs) and will follow and uphold all Food Safety and Food Quality policies as pertains to role. In the role, he / she assesses & develops under the guidance of the Head of R&D the category consumer and competition benchmarking that defines the sensory space and competitive differentiation from competitors. The Category Product Technologist also acts as a link to pilot plant & factory support and follows the scale-up of products and supports operations with new product launches and assists in the trouble shooting. The Category Product Technologist sets specifications for raw materials and products.

Key Accountabilities

Product Innovation and Development

Support the establishment of the consumer and category benchmarking with particular focus on existing competitors, market solutions and sensory product profiling

• Support the development of the innovation pipeline within your assigned categories by participating in exploratory activities to surface new product ideas with moderate input from supervisor
• Analyze consumer/regional analysis and extrapolate into a targeted product brief
• Develop new products within the assigned categories, executing and analyzing an experimental approach for product design, effectively trouble shooting as necessary and offering plausible, executable solutions
• Develop information for product/ingredient specifications, in process control points and testing requirements
• Develop robust product specifications (from a nutritional and ingredient standpoint) to ensure sustainable and flexible formulas that will meet consumer, quality and process needs

Project Management

• Management of several medium complexity projects with little supervision within the assigned categories
• Provide technical input through the planning and decision-making process and effectively communicating with senior R&D management
• Plan and lead product development projects and collaborate effectively with a cross-functional, multidisciplinary team to achieve the project scope on time and within budget while meeting quality parameters
• Deliver a flawless handover to Operations, document findings and all relevant reports according to standard and capture lessons learned and best practices

Technical Assistance

• Responsible for adhering to the FCP stability program by ensuring timely initiation of stability studies, execution and reporting as directed by the category responsible as part of recipe development & improvement or packaging changes.
• Perform trials/experiments in kitchen/lab/pilot and factory scale to achieve all briefed objectives on time
• Support the category during product industrialization by acquiring basic process understanding and ensuring proper knowledge transfer from R&D to operations

Driving Improvements

• Responsible for approving Quality Control Samples
• Effectively ensuring constant upkeep of competition analysis with basic sensorial and consumer understanding to support product development.
• Support the various matching programs
• Participate effectively in investigations and problem-solving initiatives
• Perform product analysis and set up new methods when required

Ideal Candidate Profile

Education / Experience

• Master’s degree in food technology/ Food Engineering 
• Min 5 years of experience in Food Product Development in the factory/ kitchen / lab environment.

Technical skills

• Strong knowledge and competencies in flavour chemistry (e.g. flavour generation, flavour stability and sensory relevance), and link to raw materials and food processing are a big plus
• Good level of ingredient knowledge & their impact on the process and final product
• Good knowledge of processes and technologies involved in food manufacturing
• Ability to analyse and understand consumer/regional analysis 
• Good Sensorial skills and ability to deduct conclusions
• Strong knowledge of product design principles, methods and tools
• Experience with prototyping, testing and validation techniques

Competencies

• Creativity and Innovation
• Drive for results
• Challenge status quo
• Developing people
• Drive for results*
• Environmental scanning
• Program and Project Management
• Monitoring and Measuring