Consumer Technical Insight Scientist

Unilever • Englewood Cliffs, NJ

5d • $69,360 - $104,040

About The Position

Unilever Food Solutions (UFS) is the €3bn+ foodservice division of Unilever. It leads the dynamic Food Service market across its categories and has ambitious growth objectives , marketing a range of professional food and beverage products and services to operators across 72 countries.  UFS prides itself on creating value for its customers through culinary solutions and improving the food experience for everyone from distributors and operators to diners and consumers. UFS is accelerating its digital transformation to fuel growth through data driven and technology enabled Go-to-Market ( GtM ) capabilities. Our global ambition is to reach 3 million operators by 2030 via an online & off-line contact strategy. Within the US, the focus of UFS Customer Development and Marketing is to engage with customers in unique and specific ways to generate demand for our professional brands and create long term value for our partners. Unilever is the place where you can bring your purpose to life with the work that you do - creating a better business, better world and improving everyday living. If you are a food enthusiast and have a strong passion for developing, executing and driving consumer technical insight (CTI)/Product Research and sensory evaluation program, this role is perfect for you to drive your career passion. This position will include but not limited to leveraging global and regional market and product insight, science/technology facts to deliver the unmissable superiority in product, packaging and proposition. This role would include strong partnership with your cross functional team to deliver the brand’s program and business objectives .

Requirements

• Must have at minimum a BS or MS degree in psychology, nutrition, sensory science, food science, physical science, marketing/market research or related scientific discipline.
• Minimum 3 years in Consumer/chef/operators/dining insights, sensory Science with experience in conducting sensory research, consumer qualitative, quantitative and claims research (in CPG with B2B is a plus).
• Minimum of 2 years of experience within a category R&D function, Knowledge of the category or other food-based business, Consumer Technical Insight functional and performance experience.
• Experience in B2B with chef, operators and dining experience and product functionality insight.
• Excellent communication skills (oral and written) to bring consumer(operator)/sensory insights to life for multi-functional audiences in a clear and engaging way.
• Strong planning, organizational and attention to details in execution of CTI research and roadmap.
• Ability to identify the needs of technical projects and create insight programs for delivery.
• Application of psychological principles to define operator insight research activities.
• Have statistical knowledge and ability to interpret data
• Analytical thinking with an ability to identify patterns within data
• Creative thinking to support the development of new ideas and how to showcase product superiority.
• Up to 25% travel

Nice To Haves

• Background in consumer insights, particularly within agency settings or external research consultancies

Responsibilities

• Designing and implementing robust sensory and consumer research that uncovers actionable insights, then translating those findings into clear recommendations for product development in superiority and new growth opportunities.
• Develop and execute consumer technical test plan including sensory or consumer product and packaging testing to identify targets for designing superior products and evaluation of their delivery.
• Define or contribute to the CI plan for innovation, strategic or competitive benchmarking exercises to ensure relevant key attributes are at the heart of design and evaluation.
• Analyze operator and sensory data to draw out big consumer insights and identify key measures for driving superior product designs and evaluation including Structure Team Assessments.
• Implement CTI operator/functionality/performance best practice, techniques and processes.
• Story telling – lead and co-author strategic KBS (Knowledge Based Story) that lands superiority and support Superiority roadmap.
• Support claims strategy through conducting claims workshops, claims support testing, craft compelling knowledge-based selling (KBS) narrative by identifying the most effective ways to highlight and elevate product superiority in alignment with brand strategy.
• Keep the operator at the core of every initiative, ensuring their needs are perspectives guide the product development process.
• Display curiosity and enthusiasm for food and emerging dishes, diet , health trends.
• Partner closely with brand marketing. Consumer & Market insight (CMI) and the R&D– development team to define outstanding, compelling claims and KBS.
• Manage or support execution of relevant operator , sensory or claims testing; interpret results, identify key insights and efficiently cascade key findings/learnings.
• Create exciting technical communications, visuals and demos that bring technologies and innovations to life.
• Co create KBS, demos for sales team and other activations tools.
• Understand the needs and attitudes of operators we serve, to connect them with relevance and brand tone of voice in all aspects of claims and communications.
• Write research study brief and execute studies; work closely with internal functions and external vendors (3rd parties) to ensure execution with excellence.

Benefits

• Unilever employees are eligible to participate in our benefits plan. Should the employee choose to participate, they can choose from a range of benefits to include, but is not limited to, health insurance (including prescription drug, dental, and vision coverage), retirement savings benefits, life insurance and disability benefits, parental leave, sick leave, paid vacation and holidays, as well as access to numerous voluntary benefits. Any coverages for health insurance and retirement benefits will be in accordance with the terms and conditions of the applicable plans and associated governing plan documents

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level