R&D Process Engineer, Grain and Dough

The Marzetti Company•Orange Township, OH

About The Position

The R&D Process Engineer – Grain & Dough bridges early product development with commercial bakery manufacturing by leading process development, scale-up, technology transfer, and equipment qualification for dough-based products. This role focuses on designing and optimizing bakery processes and equipment to ensure safe, efficient, and repeatable manufacturing across internal bakeries and co-manufacturing partners. The engineer works closely with Product Development, Quality, Engineering, Supply Chain, Procurement, and Plant Operations to translate product intent into robust manufacturing solutions. Success in this role depends on strong knowledge of bakery unit operations and equipment, a systems-based approach to troubleshooting and process improvement, and the ability to support new product launches, process optimization, and productivity initiatives from feasibility through start-up.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree in Engineering, with a preference for Chemical, Mechanical, or Food Engineering
5+ years in the food industry experience across Baking and Dough processing technologies.

Nice To Haves

In-depth technical expertise in bakery processes and production equipment
Ability to understand ingredient/formulation and the effects on processing dough and bakery
Ability to formulate complex experimental design
Understanding food processing
Master's Degree in Engineering

Responsibilities

Manage technical readiness process to drive early risk management and solutions mind-set/contingency planning effort to ensure innovation is on time with a successful start-up.
Integrate process expertise & knowledge into the early product development process. Build cohesive relationships as liaison between Product Development, Quality organization, Engineering, Supply Chain, and Plant operations during the commercialization process.
Provide process engineering knowledge to implement efficient and effective technology transfer between R&D, Engineering, manufacturing, and/or co-manufacturers.
Actively works with product development team to understand the process/ingredient relationship (hydration, yeast performance, fat interactions) and the effects on the manufacturing process.
Drive the development of innovative processes/technologies and the commercialization of new business initiatives. Develop innovative approaches for testing and problem resolution. Support the engineering team in scale up and design of new dough-processing and thermal technologies. Determine appropriate design application.
Perform a robust process situation assessment, document manufacturing methods, and develop new procedures for bakery unit operations. Analyze and trend data to ensure that manufacturing systems reliably deliver high-quality products as designed within specifications and at the desired cost. Document test results & conclusions, develop critical process parameters, align on critical control points, support critical quality attribute identification, and update and develop new specifications.
Review engineering drawings, read P&ID’s, develop automated process sequence descriptions, and support process capital installation from a process perspective.
Commission/Qualify/Validate & start-up new processes/equipment.
Lead moderately complex engineering projects/investigations, and/or support complex projects with some supervision. Conduct feasibility studies, lead new process technology proof of concept research, and support the implementation of new/improved network unit operations.
Lead productivity and Value Engineering projects working with Product Development, Engineering, Supply Chain and Procurement.