Business Development Lead

Voyage Foods•Oakland, CA

2d•$128,000 - $192,000•Remote

About The Position

Voyage Foods is decoupling the world's favorite foods from their traditional source material. Our portfolio spans cocoa-free chocolate, bean-free coffee, and allergen-free nut spreads, delivering the taste and functionality of the originals while insulating customers from commodity price volatility and dramatically reducing environmental footprint. We manufacture at scale in our 300,000 sq ft Ohio facility and export globally today. We sell B2B to some of the largest food companies in the world. The Role We are hiring a Business Development Lead to own new customer acquisition across our product portfolio in the mid-market. This is a hunting role. Your job is to build pipeline, run accounts end to end, and convert prospects into producing accounts focusing on CPG manufacturers, contract manufacturers, and regional brands. This is a zero-to-one commercial environment. You will not inherit a playbook, a mature CRM, or a warm territory. You will help build them.

Requirements

5 to 8 years of B2B sales or business development experience in food ingredient sales
Background selling novel or innovative ingredients (for example, stevia, sugar reduction, or other new-to-market ingredients) or compound chocolate and coatings
Experience in food required; confectionery or bakery strongly preferred
Proven track record sourcing and closing new business, not just managing inherited accounts
Comfortable selling a technical product to R&D, procurement, and commercial stakeholders simultaneously
Fluent in ingredient sales mechanics: specs, sampling, trials, co-manufacturing, MOQs, indexed pricing
Self-directed and resourceful; you build your own target lists, materials, and processes when they do not exist

Responsibilities

Pipeline generation
Build and own a qualified pipeline of prospects across CPG, specifically snacking, beverage, and private label
Run structured outbound prospecting: account mapping, decision-maker identification, cold outreach, trade show and event coverage
Selling a new category
Lead prospects through category-creation selling: educating R&D, procurement, and brand teams on the value proposition of our products, how they perform, and where they fit in their portfolio
Manage sampling, spec alignment, and bench-to-pilot progression with customer R&D teams
Deal execution
Own the full deal cycle from first meeting through fulfillment
Coordinate with distribution partners on fulfillment, logistics, and account handoff mechanics
Commercial infrastructure
Maintain rigorous pipeline hygiene: stages, touchpoints, forecasting, and win/loss learnings
Feed market intelligence back to R&D and leadership: competitive moves, pricing signals, application gaps