Food Innovation Manager

Good4u

Sligo, Connaught/Ulster

Leading food innovator in healthy snacking and ingredients in retail and foodservice sector. Good4U a young Irish company devoted to making our world a healthier happier place. We make delicious, natural, honest healthy seed snacks and ingredients and supply the major multiples in Ireland, the UK, France and the Netherlands and soon to enter the US Market. Our impressive customer profile includes Tesco, Sainsburys, Waitrose, Asda, Ocado, Supervalue, Albert Heijn and Carrefour to name a few. If you consider yourself a foodie and have some exciting ideas we would love to hear from you. Job Roles & Responsibilities. Manage new projects through the concept development to launch phase, working with stakeholders towards successful scale up and launch and lead gate sign offs. Provide input on technical feasibility and complexity, estimate timelines and initial resource requirements, and participate in consumer-facing ideation sessions to inform concept creation. Represent the Development function in internal meetings and external customer facing meetings when required. Identify impact of new products manufacturing process’s and HACCP. Remain up to date with latest and future market trends and new packaging concepts and designs. Ensure all products meet Good4U’s Nutritional Criteria. Conduct market analysis, competitive sets and benchmarking on healthy snacking online and in store for both local and international markets to determine opportunities. Coordinate and conduct pre-production development trials on site in line with operation and production schedules. Generate new labels which meet required legislation in compliance with Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011. Create internal and external specifications and QAS Sheets for all new products developed. Work with current supply base to source innovative raw materials and work with quality team to approve new suppliers and manufacturing sites. Review range to identify potential improvements or changes needed. Project manage the delivery of these product improvements. Set up and manage a weekly sensory panel to ensure that product quality is maintained to specification. Ensure suppliers maintain quality of raw material specifications after launch in collaboration with the quality and production team. Calculate cost of raw materials and recipe build with all development work with step by step written recipes. Coordinate focus groups and circulate surveys to identify consumer demand and liaise with Digital Marketing team to develop online surveys to identify consumer requirements. Liaise with customers regarding sample requests, organise and distribute samples where required. Keep up to date on Food legislation and Process Technology and attend training programmes and updates on FIR and health claims. Monthly field visits with marketing to identify new packaging designs and concepts and carry out competitor analysis. Competent in the legal and technical aspects of ingredients and their uses. Assist in third party and customer audits. Ensure all relevant activities, including work requests, trial briefs, costings and submissions paperwork is completed and maintained as part of the concept development phase and be- yond with support to product trials and monitoring test results with handover to the QC team by the preproduction phase. Carry out benchmarking initiatives as part of the NPD process to strengthen commercial proposals with promotional mechanics in mind. Communicate directly with product developers of key accounts and attend training days and buyers meetings. Build and manage specifications for key customers for branded accounts and oversee private label spec submissions. Review and complete internal raw material specifications and carry out audits on potential suppliers along with the quality team. Work with wider business teams to pull together customer insight data, trend information, lessons learnt and market data to scope out and present product opportunities at range and category level. Create 12-month pipeline to coincide with range reviews. Build customer relationships through regular meetings, innovation development and quarterly reports on categories. Keep updated on all customers COPs particularly relating to nutritional testing requirements, raw materials and labelling. Carry out post implementation reviews of all products launched and that learnings feed into future projects. Ensure products fit with brand standards, own label cops, company policies, legislation and commercial criteria. Liaise with the Quality and Production team on sensory/specification analysis of products being developed to ensure grade A quality. Use own experience of Irish and international food trends to determine new, unique opportunities and solutions for private label. Support customers by developing tools to enhance product knowledge and product display techniques, and enable them to deliver a more informed experience when selling produce. Keep abreast of technical and legal developments relevant to our product portfolio. Stimulate creativity within area of responsibility to ensure generation of new ideas capable of commercial exploitation. Manage a team of developers and chefs, allocating time and resources to specific NPD projects. Directly work with the customers, both external and internal, to ensure that there is a clear written development brief for new product development projects; agree timescales for completion and be responsible for completing all technical requirements in the critical paths and the NPD gate process. Develop and Manage partnerships with 3rd Level Institutions. Determine most suitable film and material packaging specs for all new product introductions. Shelf life determination and validation for all new products and shelf life extension for existing lines. Essential requirements. Passion for creativity and innovation within a commercially driven environment. Strives for high standards, seeks innovative solutions. A highly credible leader who can inspire passion and confidence around shared goals and values with direct reports, peers and senior stakeholders. Strong technical background in food and packaging. Strong project management skills. Simplifies complex or competing information for timely and effective decision making. Self-starter, self-motivating, able to deal with uncertainty and complexity. Creates networks that reach across organizational boundaries; takes advantage of ideas, best practice and solutions developed elsewhere. Fosters a positive, inclusive work environment where people feel respected and valued for their contributions. Exemplary interpersonal skills, able to influence through reasoning and personal relationships. This job originally appeared on RecruitIreland.com.

2408 days ago