Senior Manager, Product Development - Produce Foods

Walmart • Bentonville, AR

1d

About The Position

At Walmart, the Senior Manager, Food Product Development helps shape and grow the company’s Private Brand food businesses. The role combines food science, culinary expertise, customer insights, and commercial judgment to develop differentiated, high-quality retail products that customers value and can afford. The position leads product development from identifying innovation opportunities through commercialization, influencing products sold in Walmart stores and online.

Walmart Brands Product Development is a cross-functional team of food scientists, culinary-minded innovators, and product experts. The team partners with Merchandising, Sourcing, Quality, Packaging, Brand, and suppliers to translate customer needs into products, while applying technical expertise and commercial thinking to taste, quality, innovation, and value. The team embraces emerging technologies and continuously improves product development and business growth.

The Senior Manager builds customer-led product strategies and innovation pipelines; leads formulation, sensory evaluation, specifications, supplier development, testing, and commercialization; and integrates food safety, regulatory, labeling, quality, and shelf-life requirements from concept through launch. The role drives cost optimization and value engineering, uses customer insights and business data to improve products and accelerate development, and manages priorities, milestones, risks, and cross-functional decisions while strengthening team capabilities.

Requirements

• Strong food product development expertise across ingredients, formulation, manufacturing, sensory, packaging, and commercialization.
• Culinary curiosity and a passion for flavor, texture, food trends, and consumer eating experiences.
• Customer-first thinking and the ability to translate insights and competitive intelligence into compelling product strategies.
• Commercial acumen to balance product quality, cost, margin, manufacturability, and customer value.
• Confidence using data, analytics, and emerging AI tools to improve decisions and simplify work.
• Proven ability to influence cross-functional partners, navigate ambiguity, and deliver results.
• Passion for building innovative products and successful food businesses.
• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Marketing, Design, or a related field and 4 years of experience in design, merchandising, marketing, or a related area; or 6 years of experience in design, merchandising, marketing, or a related area.

Nice To Haves

• Application development experience, with emphasis on VBA and SQL programming languages.
• Creative design software experience.
• Financial modeling experience.
• Experience leading and completing cross-functional projects.
• Manufacturing, product development, or packaging experience.
• Microsoft Office experience.
• Supervisory experience.
• Master’s degree in Arts, Business, or Science.
• Project Management Professional certification.
• Six Sigma certification.

Responsibilities

• Build customer-led product strategies, innovation pipelines, and actionable product briefs.
• Lead formulation, sensory evaluation, specifications, supplier development, testing, and commercialization.
• Integrate food safety, regulatory, labeling, quality, and shelf-life requirements from concept through launch.
• Drive cost optimization, value engineering, and informed technical and commercial trade-offs.
• Partner with Merchandising, Sourcing, and suppliers to deliver differentiated products and business results.
• Use customer insights, sales performance, quality data, analytics, and AI to improve products and accelerate development.
• Manage priorities, milestones, risks, and cross-functional decisions while strengthening team capabilities.

Benefits

• Competitive pay and performance-based bonus awards.
• Medical, vision, and dental coverage.
• 401(k).
• Stock purchase plan.
• Company-paid life insurance.
• Paid time off, including sick leave.
• Parental leave, family care leave, bereavement leave, jury duty leave, and voting leave.
• Short-term and long-term disability.
• Company discounts.
• Military Leave Pay.
• Adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement.
• PTO and/or PPTO for vacation, sick leave, holidays, or other purposes.
• Live Better U education benefit program for eligible full-time and part-time associates, covering tuition, books, and fees for eligible programs.

What This Job Offers

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