Product Development Manager, Food Ventures

Overview

The Product Developer plays a key role in transforming chef-created gold standards into functional, testable product prototypes and recipes. This role is highly hands-on—supporting the development, iteration, and validation of MVPs (Minimum Viable Products) that bridge culinary intent with real-world technical feasibility.

Responsibilities

Prototype and MVP Development:

• Execute hands-on development of early culinary product prototypes based on direction from Chefs and senior product developers.
• Works on simple projects in autonomy to deliver prototypes and scalable recipes
• Support product evaluations, reformulations, and recipe adjustments to align with gold-standard targets
• Document preparation parameters and product performance to support product iteration and scale-up.
• Provide input on product handling, quality challenges and pack-out implications.
• Organize samples, build variants, and prepare materials for sprint reviews and tastings.

Collaboration & Scale-Up Support

• Work closely with the Chefs, Process development, Supply Chain and quality teams to prepare products for pilot trials.
• Support troubleshooting during early-stage co-manufacturing or test production runs.
• Support the product development Managers in daily tasks for complex projects
• Maintain accurate logs of formulas, build notes, test results, ingredients challenges and learnings, etc.
• Ensure traceability and development hygiene for all product iterations.

Success in This Role Looks Like

• High-quality, well-documented prototypes delivered on time and within COGS
• Strong collaboration and communication with culinary, technical, and operational partners.
• Rapid iteration with clear learnings feeding into the next development cycle.
• Prototypes that are practical, consistent, and ready for handoff to senior developers or scale-up leads.

Qualifications

• Degree in Food Science, Culinary Innovation, Food Technology, Engineering, or related field preferred.
• 5 to 7 years of hands-on product development experience in food, culinary innovation, or R&D kitchens.
• Experience within at east 2 of these technologies within Savory products: Ready Meals, Frozen foods, Pasteurization, chilled meals, shelf stable and/or culinary products.
• Experience with product comercialization and product scale up.
• FSQA experience is a major plus
• Strong practical culinary ability to prototype quickly and accurately.
• Comfortable in fast-paced, ambiguous R&D environments.
• Familiarity with pilot production or co-man processes is a plus.
• Excellent organization, documentation, collaboration and communication skills.
• Ability to find solutions and proactivity complete the profile