Position: Product Developer
Location: Kent – Hybrid
Role Summary
This position plays a central role in delivering new products and innovation initiatives from early concept through to market readiness. You will translate customer ideas and internal innovation briefs into technically robust, commercially viable, and compliant product solutions, ensuring alignment with agreed quality, cost, sustainability, and regulatory requirements across launch markets.
Working across internal teams and external manufacturing partners, you will manage development risks, support scale-up and implementation, and contribute to improving how products are developed and launched end to end.
Core Responsibilities
Product Development & Innovation Delivery
You will take ownership of assigned customer-led development projects and internally driven innovation initiatives, ensuring they progress efficiently from concept through to implementation. This includes:
1. Designing and developing formulations that meet defined customer briefs and technical requirements
2. Delivering solutions across intermediate premixes, nutritional products (human or pet), and dairy alternative applications
3. Supporting transfer to manufacturing sites, whether internal facilities or external partners
Scoping, Risk & Decision-Making
Strong front-end scoping is critical to success in this role. You will:
4. Work directly with customers and internal stakeholders to define clear technical and commercial project requirements
5. Ensure feasibility, indicative costs, and approval criteria are agreed at the outset
6. Identify potential technical, regulatory, supply, or operational risks and ensure mitigation plans are in place throughout the project lifecycle
7. Ensure development outputs remain aligned with the parameters agreed during scoping
Technical & Nutritional Expertise
You will act as a technical contributor across the business, applying scientific and nutritional knowledge to support product development and customer engagement:
8. Develop formulations that balance sensory performance, stability, regulatory compliance, shelf life, and cost
9. Conduct or coordinate sensory assessments prior to customer submission where required
10. Apply ingredient and process knowledge to make informed recommendations on shelf life and packaging suitability
11. Advise customers on appropriate approaches for shelf-life validation
12. Provide formulation and nutritional input to internal teams and customers as needed
Collaboration, Training & Continuous Improvement
Beyond individual projects, you will contribute to broader capability building and process improvement by:
13. Supporting sales teams and customers through technical training and project preparation
14. Delivering product development training to wider internal teams
15. Working with procurement and quality functions to identify, assess, and approve new raw material suppliers
16. Providing technical input into raw material approvals and supplier onboarding
17. Continuously developing your understanding of functional ingredients, nutrients, and market trends to strengthen innovation capability
18. Contributing ideas to improve development processes, tools, and ways of working
Experience & Profile
We’re looking for someone who combines technical capability with a proactive, improvement-focused mindset:
19. BSc or MSc in Food Science, a scientific discipline, or equivalent industry experience
20. Background in food, nutrition, or supplement product development
21. Strong understanding of ingredient functionality, including vitamins, minerals, flavours, colours, additives, and sweeteners
22. Experience in developing premixes, nutritional products, or food supplements
23. A strong interest in sustainability, innovation, and continuous improvement