RD&A Senior Scientist, Savoury - West Africa

About Kerry

Kerry is the world's leading taste and nutrition company for the food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries. Every day we partner with customers to create healthier, tastier and more sustainable products that are consumed by billions of people across the world. Our vision is to be our customers' most valued partner, creating a world of sustainable nutrition. A career with Kerry offers you an opportunity to shape the future of food while providing you opportunities to explore and grow in a truly global environment.

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:

• Bachelors / Masters 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