Principal Food Scientist Jobs

KitchenTown

Sr. / Principal Food Scientist

San Mateo, California

Job Purpose and Summary

The role of Senior / Principal Food Scientist is one of the most important roles at KitchenTown and is responsible for leading the development of new products across multiple product categories through all phases of the development process from benchtop to small batch production to commercialization.

Our Product Innovation Lab works directly with a wide array of the most innovative food and food-tech startups in the world and legacy food companies alike, to develop innovative new food and beverage products. Our practice area spans virtually every food category, and this position leads the collaborative efforts with our clients and our internal team of scientists and technologists to bring these products to life.

This role is for a senior or principal scientist with 8+ years of food development and technical leadership experience to help us grow our food development and innovation practice. Candidates must be able to demonstrate strong technical knowledge and expertise across multiple food categories. Candidates must possess extraordinary people leadership and collaboration and communication skills and enjoy working on a small nimble team in a lab setting. The Product Innovation team works in constant collaboration to pursue end-to-end innovation for multiple clients.

Primary Responsibilities

• Engage cross functionally with production and insights and strategy teams
• Create, design and conduct sensory tests
• Manage a team of scientists and technicians
• Lead client interactions and manage project intakes and updates
• Communicate effectively with clients and team members
• Lead at scale plant trials including creating finished product specifications, plant trial protocol and summary documents
• Scale up formulations and attend plant trials at co-packers as needed
• Lead development of new products across multiple product categories and throughout all phases of product development – from initial bench development, small batch production to commercial launch
• Provide technical expertise, reports, and presentations to clients
• Lead new ingredient sourcing, evaluation, costing, qualification and specification, developing nutritional specs, and other relevant activities for product development
• Plan and lead execution of day-to-day project and lab activities
• Manage time, resources, and priorities across multiple projects in collaboration with the team
• Plan and lead execution of day to day project and lab activities
• Build clear work plan, design of experiments and success criteria for new products

Requirements

• Experience working in the snack food category and development of better-for-you products. Culinary experience preferred.
• Ability to be flexible with changing priorities and timelines.
• Passion for creating new and exciting products
• Food science master's degree or equivalent industry experience
• Strong written and oral communication skills
• Demonstrated ability to work independently and exercise judgment in project execution.
• Creative problem solver and team player
• Experience working in a lean fast-paced innovation-centric environment
• Deep understanding in operating food process technologies, equipment and go-to vendors
• Ability to prioritize and manage multiple projects
• Experience leading products through at-scale commercialization
• 8+ years of hands-on experience in food development and commercialization
• Willing to travel domestically as required by client and project needs (10-15%)
• Ability to work in-person at our Product Innovation Lab in San Mateo, CA.

What’s in it for you?

Being a part of the KitchenTown team fully immerses you in the world of food. KitchenTown will feed your technical curiosity and passion for food development. You will get to work on many different types of projects spanning startups, medium size and legacy companies. Your imprint will be all over the development of a premiere food development practice. You will work on a team with passionate, smart, creative people who like you, love developing great food products.

We offer competitive benefits, including 401K, health, dental, and stock options. We also offer volunteer time off (VTO) to help serve our communities.

We’re located in the San Francisco Bay Area and our 20,000+ sq ft campus houses multiple facilities including a food development lab, offices, a pilot plant, and an on-site at-scale manufacturing plant. We also have a location in Berlin and a significant presence in Japan.

Come join us and be a contributor to some of the most innovative products in the food industry.

Salary Range

$120,000 - $150,000 plus benefits

To Apply

Submit a resume and why you think you’d be a good fit for this role to [email protected] with the subject line: Principal Food Scientist. Thank you!