Senior NPD Technologist

Technique Recruitment Solutions; Wroxham; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 65,000; Full time

Job summary

Technique-Recruitment Solutions Ltd is seeking a Senior NPD Technologist to own New Product Development and Existing Product Development projects. You will work with NPD, customer teams, site teams, and cross-functional stakeholders to drive concepts through to launch.

The role requires strong technical and commercial insight, excellent stakeholder management, and the ability to manage multiple projects with precision.

Qualifications

• Previous experience in a Product Development role within the food manufacturing industry.
• Proven experience launching food products from concept to market.
• Product costing experience.
• Understanding of budgets and commercial drivers.
• Supply chain knowledge, including sourcing ingredients and packaging.
• Strong project management skills with experience managing multiple projects simultaneously.
• Excellent communication and influencing skills.
• Strong analytical ability and attention to detail.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint.
• Relevant food industry qualification and/or equivalent experience.

Responsibilities

• Deliver customer-focused and commercially successful NPD and EPD projects.
• Ensure all developments meet customer requirements, legal standards, allergen controls, sustainability goals, and welfare standards.
• Identify opportunities for product improvement that enhance customer satisfaction and business value.
• Support innovation sessions and customer presentations, bringing market trends and consumer insights to life.
• Become a subject matter expert within the product category.
• Lead projects through the Concept-to-Launch Gate Process, ensuring milestones are met and fully documented.
• Manage project critical paths and coordinate cross-functional teams to deliver successful product launches.
• Assess product feasibility and ensure all developments are technically and commercially viable.
• Build and maintain accurate recipe and costing data within internal systems.
• Support customer relationships by delivering projects on time and managing expectations effectively.
• In collaboration with operations, support with scale up processes and factory trials, ensuring that expectations on quality are clearly communicated and defined.
• Support during first production runs and post-launch reviews, ensuring expectations set during development and trials are achieved.
• Collaborate with commercial, procurement, operations, and technical teams to ensure alignment on project timelines.
• Stay ahead of emerging food, consumer, and restaurant trends.
• Monitor competitor activity and identify new business opportunities.
• Support customer roadmaps and innovation strategies aligned to market trends and site capabilities.
• Bring passion, creativity, and food expertise into every project.
• Support with business updates, including weekly project status, sharing information required for board and exec meetings, when requested and for research, development and creation of quarterly trend reviews.

Skills

Product Development

NPD

Project Management

Food Industry

Food Costing

Supply Chain Knowledge

Excel

Word

PowerPoint

Communication

Analytics

Education

Degree in Food Science or related discipline

Tools

Microsoft Office

Job description

Senior NPD Technologist

We are proud to be working alongside our client who manufacture quality fresh and frozen fruit ingredients. The company is dedicated to delivering high-quality products to a wide stream of customers including most of the major retailers.

As a Senior Development Technologist, you will take ownership of New Product Development (NPD) and Existing Product Development (EPD) projects, working closely with NPD, customer teams, site teams, and cross-functional stakeholders. This role will suit someone who combines technical expertise with commercial awareness and excellent stakeholder management skills.

You will drive projects through our concept-to-launch process, ensuring products are commercially viable, technically feasible, and aligned to customer strategies and business growth objectives. Acting as a key link between, development, and launch teams.

Key Responsibilities

Product Development & Innovation

• Deliver customer-focused and commercially successful NPD and EPD projects.
• Ensure all developments meet customer requirements, legal standards, allergen controls, sustainability goals, and welfare standards.
• Identify opportunities for product improvement that enhance customer satisfaction and business value.
• Support innovation sessions and customer presentations, bringing market trends and consumer insights to life.
• Become a subject matter expert within the product category.

Project Management

• Lead projects through the Concept-to-Launch Gate Process, ensuring milestones are met and fully documented.
• Manage project critical paths and coordinate cross-functional teams to deliver successful product launches.
• Assess product feasibility and ensure all developments are technically and commercially viable.
• Build and maintain accurate recipe and costing data within internal systems.
• Support customer relationships by delivering projects on time and managing expectations effectively.
• In collaboration with operations, support with scale up processes and factory trials, ensuring that expectations on quality are clearly communicated and defined.
• Support during first production runs and post-launch reviews, ensuring expectations set during development and trials are achieved.
• Collaborate with commercial, procurement, operations, and technical teams to ensure alignment on project timelines

Technical Excellence

• Ensure products presented to customers are of the highest quality and representative of manufacturing capabilities.
• Responsible for building technical documentation during the trial with operations
• Challenge and resolve quality or consistency issues quickly and effectively.
• Review and approve artwork to ensure compliance with legal and customer requirements.
• Support continuous improvement initiatives and implementation of best-practice development processes.
• Maintain all required documentation to support internal and external audits.
• Manage and maintain technical documentation associated with NPD and first productions, including QAS, defrost validations, QC check sheets and data collection. Support technical with specifications information for new products.
• Identify and update technical team with any new products that require a HACCP review and attend HACCP meetings when required
• Ensure information relevant to gate stages is handed over to NPD packaging coordinator.

Market & Consumer Insight

• Stay ahead of emerging food, consumer, and restaurant trends.
• Monitor competitor activity and identify new business opportunities.
• Support customer roadmaps and innovation strategies aligned to market trends and site capabilities.
• Bring passion, creativity, and food expertise into every project.
• Support with business updates, including weekly project status, sharing information required for board and exec meetings, when requested and for research, development and creation of quarterly trend reviews.

Essential Requirements

• Previous experience in a Product Development role within the food manufacturing industry.
• Proven experience launching food products from concept to market.
• Product costing experience.
• Understanding of budgets and commercial drivers.
• Supply chain knowledge, including sourcing ingredients and packaging.
• Strong project management skills with experience managing multiple projects simultaneously.
• Excellent communication and influencing skills.
• Strong analytical ability and attention to detail.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint.
• Relevant food industry qualification and/or equivalent experience.

Desirable

• Degree in Food Science, Marketing, Business, or a related discipline.
• Experience within relevant product categories.

Technique-Recruitment Solutions Ltd is a proud equal opportunities employer, dedicated and specialist to the engineering and manufacturing industries. We work and support some of the most well-known companies in Norfolk and Suffolk. These vacancies are being advertised on behalf of Technique-Recruitment Solutions Ltd who are operating as an employment business and employment agency