Development Chef

Protea Recruitment Ltd | Food | Drinks | FMCG Recruitment Partner; High Wycombe; On-site; GBP 55,000 - 75,000; Full time

Job summary

This role targets a highly creative culinary professional in High Wycombe, focused on front-end food innovation rather than traditional food science. A chef’s mindset drives flavour, ingredients, and imagination, with technical knowledge supporting development.

A role for blue-sky concept creation, translating trends into ideas, and collaborating across culinary leadership, flavour specialists, consumer insights, and innovation teams to deliver commercially viable concepts; bakery/pastry and

Qualifications

• Strong bakery/pastry foundations essential.
• Experience in chocolate and confectionery for food manufacturing is desirable.
• Creative development background in FMCG preferred.

Responsibilities

• Engage in blue-sky thinking and concept generation.
• Translate consumer trends into new product ideas.
• Collaborate with culinary leadership, flavour specialists, consumer insights, and innovation teams to deliver commercially viable concepts.
• Develop solutions for future consumer needs.

Job description

This role is designed for a highly creative culinary professional rather than a traditional food scientist.

The ideal candidate approaches product development with a chef’s mindset—driven by flavour, ingredients, and imagination. Technical knowledge supports the work, but creativity, curiosity and a deep understanding of food are the true priorities.

The successful candidate will have a natural grasp of:

• Ingredient origins and functionality
• Flavour creation, pairing and balance
• Culinary techniques and processes
• Global cuisines and emerging food trends

This is a role for someone who thinks like a chef first, innovator second, and scientist third.

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This position sits at the very front end of the innovation pipeline. It is about imagining the future of food, not refining what already exists.

Key responsibilities include:

• Blue‑sky thinking
• Creating completely new concepts
• Translating consumer trends into product ideas
• Developing solutions for future consumer needs

This is not a recipe‑tweaking role—it is a concept‑generation role.

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Collaboration & Working Environment

The Development Chef will work closely with:

• Senior culinary leadership
• Flavour specialists
• Consumer insight teams
• Innovation leadership

The role requires strong collaboration across multiple functions to transform culinary ideas into commercially viable products.

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Candidate Background

The hiring manager is open‑minded about where candidates come from. Strong fits include:

• Development Chef
• Pastry Chef / Senior Pastry Chef
• Sous Chef
• Head Pastry Chef
• Executive Pastry Chef
• Foodservice chefs with strong creative development experience

Candidates preferably from the FMCG sector is preferred are welcome, provided they bring exceptional creativity, culinary skill and the right mindset.

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Personality & Mindset

The ideal candidate will be:

• Naturally creative
• Passionate about food
• Curious about global cuisines and trends
• Comfortable experimenting and pushing boundaries
• Strong at communicating ideas
• Collaborative and open to cross‑functional teamwork

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• Based in High Wycombe
• Global exposure across multiple markets and cultures
• Sponsorship cannot be offered for this role
• Salary flexibility available for outstanding candidates

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The ideal background blends bakery/pastry expertise with exposure to chocolate and confectionery from food manufacturing

Experience mix:

• ~60% Bakery / Pastry

They do not expect equal mastery across both areas, but strong bakery/pastry foundations are essential.

• Bakery

I suspect due to the role type and the number of applications we will not be able to contact all candidates for feedback , only those selected for the shortlist