Senior Product Development Leader

Deli Star Corporation•St. Louis, MO

9d•Onsite

About The Position

Deli Star is a next-generation food manufacturing company specializing in fresh, sous vide cooked proteins and patented food-safety technologies. They are building a world-class Fresh Sous Vide™ system to make safe, nutritious, high-quality protein fresh and accessible. This role is for a technical leader who can turn promising product designs into repeatable manufacturing results. The position involves combining deep meat and protein processing expertise, experimental rigor, and hands-on plant leadership to guide development trials and initial manufacturing scale-up. The individual will work with various teams to test process assumptions, diagnose performance, define critical requirements, and establish evidence that products can be made consistently at commercial scale. This is a hands-on role with meaningful influence, helping to bring new Fresh Sous Vide applications, REVEL products, and customer programs into reliable production across different channels. The DESIGN Team connects food science and product design with technical expertise, Supply Chain, and Technology systems. The Senior Product Development Leader focuses on commercializing the design, translating product and process intent into repeatable manufacturing through disciplined trials, technical scale-up, and effective handoff to Manufacturing. The adjacent Senior Product Designer role owns formulation, bench design, and technical intent.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Food Science, Meat Science, Animal Science, Food Engineering or a related discipline preferred; equivalent relevant industry experience may be considered.
Seven or more years of relevant food product development, process development, or commercialization experience, including independent technical leadership.
Significant hands-on meat and protein processing experience and demonstrated plant-scale commercialization success.
Strong understanding of protein functionality, thermal processing, manufacturing equipment, process variability, and refrigerated food quality.
Experience planning and leading plant trials, using structured experiments, data, and sound technical documentation to make decisions.
Working knowledge of HACCP and experience applying food safety and quality requirements in development and manufacturing environments.
Ability to assess yield, material utilization, processing performance, and their effects on COGS.
Ability to communicate technical recommendations, lead across functions, and develop people.

Nice To Haves

Sous vide, cooked or ready-to-eat proteins, and refrigerated prepared foods.
Meals, entrées, sauces, sides, or integrated meal components.
Vacuum packaging, flexible films, forming and sealing systems, and product-package interactions.
Specifications, sensory evaluation, shelf-life programs, statistical analysis, and experimental design.

Responsibilities

Lead development trials and initial plant-scale production trials for core product improvements and strategic innovation programs.
Translate approved product and process designs into scalable manufacturing methods for proteins and prepared foods.
Apply deep expertise in meat science, protein functionality, ingredient interactions, thermal processing, equipment, yield, and finished-product performance.
Design and lead disciplined trials with clear objectives, variables, controls, success criteria, sampling plans, and data requirements.
Provide hands-on technical leadership during trials, diagnose unexpected results, and use structured experimentation to resolve scale-up risks.
Document results and recommend go, hold, revise, or repeat based on evidence, following established development approvals and Food Safety & Quality requirements.
Partner with Product & Process Design when scale-up evidence indicates the formulation or original technical intent needs reconsideration.
Define technical material requirements, specifications, quantities, timing needs, and qualification criteria; collaborate with Purchasing on readiness and evaluation of alternatives.
Engage Manufacturing early to assess equipment capability, process fit, manufacturability, production constraints, and expected performance.
Define and document critical product and process parameters, technical findings, operating requirements, and unresolved risks.
Understand cost-of-goods-sold (COGS) drivers and provide technical inputs on formulation, material use, yield, waste, and processing performance; identify practical improvement opportunities.
Lead the technical handoff to Manufacturing for subsequent production scale-up, securing clear acceptance of requirements, evidence, and open issues.
Provide targeted startup support, with ongoing production troubleshooting led by Manufacturing.
Lead, coach, and develop the Commercialization team, including Pilot Plant Manager and other scale-up technicians.
Ensure the Pilot Plant is safe, sanitary, maintained, equipped, organized, operational, and ready for development work.
Establish expectations for facility readiness, operating practices, documentation, and Pilot Plant capability, ensuring adherence to applicable Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) plans and Food Safety & Quality requirements.
Coordinate Pilot Plant resources with the Pilot Plant Manager and Product Management in the GROW functional area of the business for early-stage customer-led development.
Coordinate trial resources and communicate technical plans, findings, risks, and decisions across Product & Process Design, Supply Chain Engineering, Purchasing, Manufacturing, Food Safety & Quality, Product Management, and Finance.
Build Pilot Plant capability as development needs and the organization evolve.