Business Development Lead

Voyage Foods; United States; Hybrid; USD 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Voyage Foods is hiring a Business Development Lead to own new customer acquisition across our product portfolio in the mid-market. This hunting role builds pipeline from scratch and closes deals with CPG manufacturers, contract manufacturers, and regional brands.

You will educate R&D, procurement, and brand teams on our category-creating ingredients, manage sampling and bench-to-pilot progression, and own the full deal cycle through fulfillment.

Qualifications

• 5–8 years of B2B sales or business development experience in food ingredient sales.
• Background selling novel or innovative ingredients or confectionery/coatings.
• Experience in food required; confectionery or bakery preferred.

Responsibilities

• Build and own a qualified pipeline across CPG, focusing on snacking, beverage, and private label.
• Lead outbound prospecting: account mapping, decision-maker identification, cold outreach, events.
• Educate R&D, procurement, and brand teams on Voyage Foods' category-creating products.
• Own the full deal cycle from first meeting through fulfillment; coordinate with distribution partners.

Skills

B2B sales

Food ingredient sales

New business closing

Confectionery/bakery

R&D stakeholder outreach

Self-directed

Job description

Voyage Foods – Remote, Hybrid, In-Person – Full-time

About Voyage Foods

Voyage Foods is decoupling the world's favorite foods from their traditional source material. Our portfolio spans cocoa-free chocolate, bean-free coffee, and allergen-free nut spreads, delivering the taste and functionality of the originals while insulating customers from commodity price volatility and dramatically reducing environmental footprint. We manufacture at scale in our 300,000 sq ft Ohio facility and export globally today. We sell B2B to some of the largest food companies in the world.

The Role

We are hiring a Business Development Lead to own new customer acquisition across our product portfolio in the mid-market. This is a hunting role. Your job is to build pipeline, run accounts end to end, and convert prospects into producing accounts focusing on CPG manufacturers, contract manufacturers, and regional brands. This is a zero-to-one commercial environment. You will not inherit a playbook, a mature CRM, or a warm territory. You will help build them.

What You'll Do

• Build and own a qualified pipeline of prospects across CPG, specifically snacking, beverage, and private label


• Run structured outbound prospecting: account mapping, decision-maker identification, cold outreach, trade show and event coverage

Selling a new category

• Lead prospects through category-creation selling: educating R&D, procurement, and brand teams on the value proposition of our products, how they perform, and where they fit in their portfolio


• Manage sampling, spec alignment, and bench-to-pilot progression with customer R&D teams

Deal execution

• Own the full deal cycle from first meeting through fulfillment


• Coordinate with distribution partners on fulfillment, logistics, and account handoff mechanics

Commercial infrastructure

• Maintain rigorous pipeline hygiene: stages, touchpoints, forecasting, and win/loss learnings


• Feed market intelligence back to R&D and leadership: competitive moves, pricing signals, application gaps

Who You Are

• 5 to 8 years of B2B sales or business development experience in food ingredient sales


• Background selling novel or innovative ingredients (for example, stevia, sugar reduction, or other new-to-market ingredients) or compound chocolate and coatings


• Experience in food required; confectionery or bakery strongly preferred


• Proven track record sourcing and closing new business, not just managing inherited accounts


• Comfortable selling a technical product to R&D, procurement, and commercial stakeholders simultaneously


• Fluent in ingredient sales mechanics: specs, sampling, trials, co-manufacturing, MOQs, indexed pricing


• Self-directed and resourceful; you build your own target lists, materials, and processes when they do not exist

Why This Role

Commodity prices across cocoa and coffee have hit historic highs and the world's biggest food companies are actively looking for structural alternatives. You will be selling products with a genuine tailwind, a real cost and sustainability story, and manufacturing capacity ready to scale behind them.