Food Innovation Manager

TN United Kingdom; London; On-site; GBP 35,000 - 55,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a Food Innovation Manager to drive their food strategy. This role involves collaborating with various stakeholders to enhance product development and ensure quality standards are met. The ideal candidate will have a passion for food, strong analytical skills, and experience in the food retail or hospitality sector. Join a dynamic team that values creativity and aims to make a positive impact in the community. If you thrive in a fast-paced environment and are eager to contribute to innovative food solutions, this opportunity is perfect for you.

Qualifications

• 3-5 years experience in a food innovation role.
• Excellent knowledge in food technical processes.

Responsibilities

• Support the Food Innovation Lead to execute the menu plan.
• Responsible for the development and management of NPD concepts.

Skills

Food Innovation

Product Development

Market Research

Analytical Skills

Project Management

Education

Degree in Food Science or related field

Job description

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Nando’s is on a journey of Changing Lives Together, creating lasting happiness for our people, our customers, and the communities we work in. Originally started in Johannesburg, South Africa, we pride ourselves on creating memorable experiences for everyone involved in Nando’s: from our employees, communities, founders, and suppliers, but most importantly, our customers.

The number one reason our customers come to Nando’s is to experience our flame grilled PERi-PERi chicken. The food team will support the development, implementation, and continual enhancement of our food and menu strategy and our overall food purpose. It is addictive, we are generous, and our customers trust us, so we will ensure that our people have the food knowledge, skills, and learning to support the business to consistently deliver our unique product, freshly cooked and served on time.

The Food Innovation Manager supports the Food Innovation Lead. They are responsible for the execution and delivery of the Nando’s UK&I restaurant food strategy.

NPD & EPD

• Supporting the Food Innovation Lead to execute and deliver the menu plan as per the Nando’s UK&I restaurant food strategy.
• Supporting the Food Innovation Lead to deliver products to present to Menu Innovation in line with new concept briefs.
• Responsible for the development and management of any NPD concepts as determined by the Food Innovation Lead or Head of Food.
• Responsible for factory ingredient/product sign-off process with suppliers and own relevant paperwork through sample submission process.
• Leading the review & sign-off process for all sample submissions.
• Responsible for creation of concept handover documents with all relevant information to set up trial & launch programme for success.
• Attend weekly QC meetings as a quality guardian to ensure concept & existing product quality is maintained.
• Responsible for restaurant paperwork development to drive consistent quality standards for all new products – reviewing of nutritional & allergen data where applicable.
• To supply the Food Innovation Lead with all trial information to feed into costing & GP calculations.
• Supporting the Food Innovation Lead to develop existing products, ingredients, or processes in a continuous improvement programme as determined by Menu Innovation to drive food quality standards.
• Responsible for the food development management aspects of Putney Kitchen including samples, stock rotation, and product development procurement.

Market Insights

• Responsible for stimulating a continuous flow of creative ideas through appropriate research in the food service industry and networks.
• Leading the planning of regular food safaris to identify new concepts, exploring menu-specific categories and competitor research.
• Leading the engagement with relevant industry organisations to report latest food trend analysis back into the business.
• Attend industry food shows to keep up to date with latest food innovation.
• Support the Commercial and Customer teams with the production of menu category reviews.
• To actively demonstrate and encourage behaviours that foster the Nando’s values of Pride, Passion, Courage, Integrity & Family.

Key Stakeholders:

This role will touch into many different parts of the business, including:

• Category Teams – Commercial, Customer, Technical, Food Operations
• External Suppliers
• Head of Food

The candidate should possess / be:

• 3-5 years experience in a food innovation role
• Experience within a food retail, hospitality, or manufacturing environment
• Passionate about good food and ability to translate this passion into Nando’s products.
• Excellent level of product development process knowledge and experience
• Excellent knowledge and experience in food technical processes.
• Advanced operational knowledge and credibility to make recommendations and influence realistic and commercial solutions, with the ability to build rapport at all levels of the organisation.
• Able to influence at various levels and a confident, passionate presenter capable of engaging different audiences.
• Understands the day-to-day operation of restaurants and how to deliver amazing food alongside operational and commercial challenges.
• Highly analytical with the ability to solve problems and make sound judgments, taking responsibility for decisions and communicating these in a timely and structured way.
• Excellent organizational skills, able to manage multiple tasks and deliver projects and programmes.
• Confident with the ability to work well under pressure, positive and fun individual with interpersonal sensitivity and warmth.
• Team player who works well with operational partners to make recommendations and influence realistic, commercial solutions – differentiating between long and short-term solutions to solve business needs.

Our candidate should be looking for:

• A culture with strong purpose & values, intent on contributing to / driving positive cultural and societal change.
• Involvement in a variety of projects rather than repetitive work in a business that encourages creativity and evolution rather than a set approach.
• An environment which is relaxed and informal, whilst highly driven and ambitious.
• A business that seeks to support every employee to be at their best, and encourage individuality.

This summarises the key responsibilities of your role, but there may be other reasonable requests and additional responsibilities required on an ad-hoc basis.