Scientist Food Sr

The Marzetti Company•Orange Township, OH

6h•Hybrid

About The Position

A Sr. Food Scientist has a strong background in emulsions, flavor development and product commercialization to lead the development of salad dressings, sauces, and condiments. This role requires demonstrated technical expertise in ingredient functionality, formulation, process optimization, and functional leadership in project management. The ideal candidate will play a key role in driving new product development, improving product performance, and mentoring junior scientists while collaborating with cross-functional teams to bring new products to the market.

Requirements

Bachelor’s in food science, Food Chemistry, or a related field preferred.
6+ years of experience in sauce, dressing, or condiment formulation.
Demonstrated experience developing and commercializing emulsion-based products from concept through production.
Strong technical understanding of emulsion science, ingredient functionality, flavor systems, stabilizers, preservatives, and texture development.
Experience with dressing and sauce processing technologies, including high-shear mixing, homogenization, batch processing, continuous processing, hot-fill, cold-fill, and scale-up.
Knowledge of shelf-life design and interpretation, including physical, chemical, microbiological, and sensory stability.
Hands-on experience with analytical and physical testing, such as pH, titratable acidity, viscosity, water activity, salt, Brix, color, sensory evaluation, and stability testing.
Ability to collaborate with cross-functional teams, mentor junior scientists, and drive R&D strategy.
Strong project management and critical thinking skills.
Excellent communication skills for interfacing with internal and external teams.

Responsibilities

Lead the development of innovative salad dressings, sauces, and condiments that align with market trends, customer strategies, regulatory changes, and sustainability initiatives.
Optimize formulations for taste, texture, stability, nutrition, and cost-effectiveness while ensuring scalability for mass production.
Explore emerging ingredient technologies (e.g., next-generation emulsifiers, natural preservatives, and plant-based alternatives) to enhance product performance.
Serve as the technical resource on developing emulsions, flavor, use of stabilizer systems to enhance product functionality.
Troubleshoot complex formulation and processing challenges such as separation, viscosity inconsistencies, and flavor matching.
Guide formulation strategy, experimental design, technical risk assessment, and decision-making for assigned projects.
Provide technical leadership and mentorship to food scientists and technologists.
Ensure formulations comply with applicable FDA, FSMA, food safety, labeling, and customer requirements.
Partner with regulatory affairs to support ingredient statements, nutrition information, allergen reviews, claims, and label compliance.
Collaborate with quality assurance and manufacturing teams to define product specifications and ensure consistent execution across production batches.
Lead plant trials and start up production process and execution; troubleshoot processing challenges in batch and continuous production environments.
Partner with operations and engineering teams to seamlessly transition formulations from lab-scale to commercial production.
Optimize processing parameters (e.g., shear rates, homogenization, and order of addition) to enhance product texture and stability.
Collaborate with culinary, consumer insights, marketing, sales, procurement, packaging, quality, regulatory, operations, and engineering to deliver business objectives.
Work directly with ingredient suppliers and external partners to evaluate new technologies, troubleshoot issues, and identify innovation opportunities.
Communicate technical recommendations clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
Stay current on ingredient innovation, processing technologies, consumer trends, competitive products, and industry developments in dressings, sauces, condiments, and adjacent categories.