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Job Purpose and Impact

The Senior Pet Food Innovation Scientist will coordinate, align and innovate by exploring, developing and implementing new and existing products. In this position, you will provide technical expertise related to formulation and new product development of wet/ human grade/ temperature controlled pet food. Additional responsibilities will include the technology/process development for these products. This position identifies and implements technical solutions against business goals.

Key Accountabilities

• Identify product growth and new product opportunities, modifying plans to meet opportunities.

• Stay current with literature and analytical advancements and works with independently on daily tasks.

• Provide technical leadership in product and process development and improvement, quality systems and regulatory oversight.

• Develops and implements innovation roadmap market plans including market and innovation plans aligned to the business strategy.

• Work with cross functional teams that include marketing, insights, sales, ops, food safety quality and regulatory.

• Collaborate with research and commercial brand to develop short and long term testing programs for experimental and commercial products and hybrids.

• Partner with sales, business management and marketing partners to identify customer needs and translate these into new product development opportunities.

• Independently handle complex issues with minimal supervision, while escalating only the most complex issues to appropriate staff.

• Other duties as assigned

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Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a related field or equivalent experience
• Minimum of four years of work experience (could be combined professional/university) in one or more of the following areas: Pet Food Formulation Development, Ingredient Functionality, & Product Commercialization
• Baseline understanding of companion animal palatability, nutrition, & AAFCO nutrient requirements.
• Ability to work in a cold environment and lift up to 30lbs.
• Ability to travel up to 30%

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's degree or other post-secondary degree
• Demonstrated financial and business acumen
• Experience formulating wet pet food or extruded pet food products
• Thermal processing experience
• Experience working in a manufacturing or operations environment. (University or Commercial Scale)
• Experience with statistical modeling and interpretation of data
• Strategic thinker with the ability to build effective plans to support strategic initiatives
• Experience working successfully in a matrixed organization
• Experience conducting continuous improvement events such as Kaizen, Six Sigma, or Lean Processes