Sr. R&D Scientist

E.A. Sween Company•Eden Prairie, MN

13h•Hybrid

About The Position

We are seeking a Senior R&D Scientist to join our team and lead product development from concept through commercialization for ready-to-eat foods, with a focus on sandwiches, wraps, and handheld meals. This role combines culinary creativity, food science expertise, and manufacturing knowledge to develop great tasting products that clear business value. The Senior R&D Scientist will create prototypes aligned with brand, consumer, cost, and operational goals, then successfully scale them into production. The ideal candidate brings strong food science capability, hands-on product development experience, sound culinary judgment, and the ability to turn consumer-focused ideas into commercially viable products.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Food Science, Culinary Science, Food Engineering or a related field.
7 or more years of product development experience in the food industry.
Strong culinary foundation with the ability to translate culinary concepts into scalable commercial products.
Hands-on experience developing ready-to-eat foods, prepared meals, sandwiches, wraps, bakery-based foods, meat systems, cheese applications, sauces, spreads, or related CPG food products.
Experience leading products from concept, bench development, prototype creation, plant trials, and commercialization.
Strong understanding of ingredient functionality, formulation, food safety, shelf life, sensory evaluation, and manufacturing scale up.
Strong sensory evaluation skills and ability to give clear direction on flavor, texture, appearance, aroma and eating experience.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree in Food Science, Culinary Science, or related field.
Culinary degree or professional kitchen experience.
Experience with ready-to-eat meals, sandwiches, sauces, proteins, bakery, deli, refrigerated foods, or convenience foods.
Experience with chilled, refrigerated, MAP, and shelf-life sensitive food products.
Experience with consumer research, sensory methods, DOE, statistical analysis, and data-based product optimization.
Knowledge of PLM, ERP, formulation systems, specification systems, and project management tools.
Experience supporting customer presentations, innovation sessions, and product cuttings.

Responsibilities

Lead new product development projects from concept through commercialization.
Translate culinary concepts into scalable products with strong consumer appeal, clear differentiation, and operational feasibility.
Drive innovation, product renovations, quality improvements, cost savings, ingredient substitutions, and productivity initiatives.
Design and execute experiments, analyze data, draw conclusions, and provide sound technical recommendations.
Develop product formulas, processing instructions, specifications, technical documentation.
Lead culinary standard development, bench top prototypes, plant trials and first production runs.
Apply food science principles related to flavor, texture, moisture migration, water activity, pH, shelf life, and food safety.
Integrate culinary thinking into product design, flavor development, ingredient selection, and consumer experience.
Present concepts, prototypes, technical updates, and recommendations to cross functional leaders, customers and business partners.
Serve as a technical subject matter expert during customer meetings, product presentations, and internal project team meetings.
Influence cross-functional teams and guide decisions using data, sensory findings, technical knowledge, and business priorities.
Mentor junior scientists, technologists, technicians, and cross-functional partners to build technical capability and execution discipline.
Maintain accurate formulas, project files, trial reports, test data, specifications, and commercialization documents.
Monitor on industry trends, new ingredients, processing technology, packaging formats, culinary trends, and competitive products.