RD & A Senior Scientist, Savoury - West Africa at Kerry Group Plc

Requisition ID: 50856

About the Role

• We are looking for a talented and motivated RD&A Scientist with experience in Sauce technologies (Savoury or Sweet sauces experience).
• This is a hands-on, end-to-end Ideation to Commercialization role, working with a Global company with a significant Application and Manufacturing footprint across Greater Africa. 

Key Responsibilities

• Provide support to the R&D, Regulatory, Marketing, Commercial, Operations and Quality teams
• Evaluate the totality of the existing scientific evidence and translate into product positioning and messaging, within the context of existing regulations
• Provide ongoing technical support to position Kerry’s capabilities in sauces (savoury and sweet) development for food service
• Holistic product development of sauces with formulation excellence and processing know how
• Ingredient competencies especially fat emulsion, protein stabilization, dairy ingredients, texturant systems, buffering systems and flavourings
• Support rapid innovation for new product development and new business opportunities to meet ever changing food service customer and consumer needs
• Identify opportunities for new product development and positioning across food service and retail channels
• Identify and evaluate technologies and ingredients for new product development; leverage existing technologies to identify and promote innovation opportunities
• Provide application support to relevant business and RD&A teams on food service development projects
• Assist in formulating wet sauces platform across multiple market End Uses and its implementation; Articulate and translate program to top-line and bottom-line impact to business growth and be able to engage with business leaders on business impact
• Interface with internal and external scientific experts, to advance in product innovation and support business growth
• Lead and participate in proactive and reactive projects
• Present technically complex scientific data to internal and external customers to progress business objectives
• Collaborate on new product development and introductions with interdepartmental teams on Project Management initiatives
• Attend trade shows and scientific conferences
• Present to customers, sales and other stakeholders

Qualifications, Skills & Experience

• Bachelor's / Master's Degree in Food Science, Food Biotechnology, Biochemistry, Chemistry or other related fields with a minimum 5 years relevant experience
• Food and Beverage research experience – protocol development, study design, recruitment, monitoring, laboratory analysis, project management, etc
• Sauce product development with ingredient competencies, especially fat emulsion, protein stabilization, dairy ingredients, texturant systems, buffering systems and flavourings (sweet or culinary sauce experience will be beneficial)
• Application expertise in food service areas is of great benefit, but not essential
• Sensory evaluation skills to support product development
• Product upscale with processing knowledge in terms of product and its application
• Ability to manage multiple projects
• Fluency in English is essential
• Works well with cross-functional teams –has the ability to link between applications groups / Marketing / Production in order to achieve the end goal
• Strong team player with a clear focus on stakeholder engagement and solution delivery
• Takes personal accountability and ownership of actions to completion
• Stays abreast of current literature, research, industry developments and market trends
• Displays the creativity to independently identify experimental work necessary to achieve project objectives and contribute workable ideas