Principal Chef Culinary Innovation Principal Chef Culinary Innovation

Nestle Operational Services Worldwide SA

About The Position

The Principal Culinary Innovation Chef plays a critical leadership role in shaping the culinary vision, innovation pipeline, and brand experience for the Global Culinary Kitchen (GCK) division. With a diverse portfolio spanning more than a dozen iconic brands across sweet, savory, seasonal, and global culinary categories, GCK brings together everything from Toll House and Morsels to Maggi, Libby’s, cooking milks, and emerging ambient and confectionary platforms—offering something for every food moment. This role blends deep culinary expertise with strategic cross-functional partnership to develop recipes, inspire product innovation, strengthen brand equity, and champion the voice of the consumer. They drive the creation of trend-forward, consumer-centric recipes; guide product development; bring culinary credibility to customer engagements; and serve as a cultural ambassador for food excellence across GCK and broader Nestlé USA.

Requirements

7+ years professional culinary experience in restaurant, bakery, culinary R&D, or multi-unit food environments.
Culinary degree or equivalent professional experience.
Strong foundation in recipe development and writing with a consumer lens, food science basics, and recipe commercialization practices.
Experience leveraging consumer insights, trends, and data to inform menu or recipe development.
Strong presentation skills—comfortable showcasing recipes, leading demos, and representing brands to internal and external audiences.
Excellent communication, cross-functional collaboration, and project leadership skills.
Ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced, agile environment.
Willingness to travel up to 20-25%.

Nice To Haves

Experience supporting CPG product development or working in innovation environments that require significant cross-functional collaboration with teams including TAG and Marketing.
Strong understanding of global cuisines and flavor profiles.
Demonstrated expertise in baking, pastry, or specialty categories
Experience organizing and facilitating culinary immersions, workshops, or training sessions.
Familiarity with I2L or similar product development processes.

Responsibilities

Develop a robust portfolio of new, consumer-led recipes across GCK brands.
Translate trends, insights, and NCompass personas into fresh usage occasions, versatile applications, and compelling content that drives household penetration and engagement.
Serve as the culinary lead for new product development, bringing elevated culinary expertise to innovation and renovation projects.
Develop and validate Gold Standard recipes for I2L product development and long-lead customer meetings.
Deliver insights and prototypes that reflect consumer needs, category trends, and brand ambitions.
Conduct ongoing culinary, baking, and flavor trend research to inform brand strategy, innovation sprints, and marketing activation.
Lead field immersions, offsite tours, and scouting visits to surface actionable insights for cross-functional partners.
Create compelling culinary content that showcases product versatility, technique, and consumer relevance.
Collaborate with brand teams to bring the culinary voice into campaigns, social content, and experiential events.
Host hands-on culinary immersion sessions for cross-functional teams to build product knowledge, flavor literacy, empathy, and alignment with consumer experiences.
Lead culinary language training, tasting etiquette sessions (in partnership with TAG), and onboarding culinary education.
Support broader Nestlé culinary activations, customer meetings, ELT meetings, Division and Zone events as a culinary ambassador.
Act as a strategic thought partner across teams, helping shape brand narratives, innovation priorities, and activation strategies.