Development & Application Chef II

Kerry Group; Naas; On-site; EUR 45,000 - 75,000; Full time

Job summary

Kerry Group is seeking a dynamic Chef to join our Retail Chef team in Naas, Ireland, supporting customers across Central Europe. You will create on-trend food applications, showcase Kerry's Taste and Nutrition portfolio, and drive product innovation across meals, soups, sauces, meat, and plant-based products.

Collaboration with RD&A, Marketing, and Commercial teams is essential. In this customer-facing role, you will help accelerate product development, deliver consumer-preferred solutions, and

Qualifications

• Further education in a culinary, food or chef environment.
• Experience working as a Chef, with hands-on experience.
• Ability to prepare and present a broad range of technology building blocks in final application as a food concept.

Responsibilities

• Proactively create new and innovative concept ideas based on Kerry Technologies (stocks, fermentation, flavours, dairy tools, positive nutritional tools, marinades, coatings, etc.), customer needs and innovation driven by market insight.
• Take direction from the marketing teams in terms of trends and take direction from commercial leads to ensure you are working on opportunities that will grow our business.
• Implement strict positive release process across projects to bring consistency and high standards.
• Prepare and execute creative product presentations for customers demonstrating a sound understanding of Kerry’s global technology capability and manufacturing capabilities aligned to customer needs.
• Bring chef and food insight into the business driven by a love of food and how good food is made.
• Maintain awareness of competitors, the market and consumer trends.
• Build relationships across the Global Kerry Craft Collective.
• Build peer to peer relationships at target customer retailer and connected manufacturers and use these relationships to drive value for the customer and Kerry.
• Ensure day-to-day maintenance, general good housekeeping practices of the laboratories, equipment, presentation & customer suites. Maintain health and safety standards.
• Work closely with Kerry technologists to execute against customer briefs, using market and culinary knowledge.

Skills

Culinary expertise

Food presentation

Market insight

Education

Culinary education

Job description

Kerry is the world's leading taste and nutrition company for the food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries. Every day we partner with customers to create healthier, tastier and more sustainable products that are consumed by billions of people across the world. Our vision is to be our customers' most valued partner, creating a world of sustainable nutrition. A career with Kerry offers you an opportunity to shape the future of food while providing you opportunities to explore and grow in a truly global environment.

About the role

We are seeking a dynamic and highly motivated professional Chef to join our Retail Chef team, supporting customers across Central Europe. Reporting to the Senior Executive Chef, RD&A, you will play a key role within Kerry's European Research, Development & Applications (RD&A) function, collaborating closely with Commercial, Marketing, and RD&A teams to drive product innovation and renovation.

In this customer-facing role, you will create inspiring, on-trend food applications that showcase the power of Kerry's Taste and Nutrition portfolio across a variety of categories, including meals, soups, sauces, meat, and plant-based products. Through culinary expertise and market insight, you will help customers accelerate product development, deliver consumer-preferred solutions, and unlock greater value.

Working at the intersection of food innovation and consumer trends, you will bring Kerry's technologies to life through compelling food concepts and demonstrations. By combining our broad ingredient capabilities with deep consumer and market understanding, you will help develop solutions that meet evolving consumer needs and create a meaningful impact in the marketplace.

Key responsibilities

• Proactively create new and innovative concept ideas based on Kerry Technologies (stocks, fermentation, flavours, dairy tools, positive nutritional tools, marinades, coatings, etc.), customer needs and innovation driven by market insight
• Take direction from the marketing teams in terms of trends and take direction from commercial leads to ensure you are working on opportunities that will grow our business. Ensure a clear concept to development process is in place and monitored with the Technologists to ensure consistency and attention to detail.
• Implement strict positive release process across projects to bring consistency and high standards.
• Prepare and execute creative product presentations for customers demonstrating a sound understanding of the Kerry’s global technology capability, manufacturing capabilities aligned to customer needs, ensuring that these concepts are aligned with the customer’s commercial reality.
• Bring chef and food insight into the business driven by a love of food and how good food is made.
• Maintain awareness of competitors, the market and consumer trends.
• Build relationships across the Global Kerry Craft Collective.
• Build peer to peer relationships at target customer retailer and connected manufacturers and use these relationships to drive value for the customer and Kerry.
• Ensure day-to-day maintenance, general good housekeeping practices of the laboratories, equipment, presentation & customer suites. Maintain health and safety standards.
• Work closely with Kerry technologists to execute against customer briefs, using market and culinary knowledge.

Qualifications and skills

• Further education in a culinary, food or chef environment
• Experience working as a Chef, with hands-on experience
• Ability to prepare and present a broad range of technology building blocks in final application as a food concept
• Good communication and presentation skills
• Innovative yet practical with a flair for creating food and challenging why we do what we do
• The ability to deliver against a brief in time
• A high level of attention to detail and the highest quality standards
• Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to work alone or within a multi-functional team