Culinary Innovation Lead

ALAMANCE FOODS INC; Graham (NC); On-site; USD 78,000 - 95,000; Full time

Job summary

Alamance Foods Inc. in Graham, NC seeks a Research Chef, Culinary Innovation to translate customer needs into innovative food and beverage solutions.

You will lead projects with culinary and sensory expertise, establishing gold standards and collaborating with Food Scientists for development and commercialization. The role combines kitchen creation with lab collaboration, customer presentations, and market exploration, while traveling up to 40% of the time.

Qualifications

• Culinary degree and professional training required.
• 7+ years in culinary innovation or product development preferred.
• Strong project management and customer-facing skills.
• Experience translating consumer insights into food concepts.
• Knowledge of food safety and GMPs.

Responsibilities

• Lead culinary development for customer and internal projects from concept through validated gold standard.
• Translate culinary intent into actionable development direction for Food Scientists and technical teams.
• Collaborate with R&D through formulation, prototype development, sensory evaluation, scale-up, and commercialization.
• Lead and support customer presentations, tastings, demonstrations, product reviews, and innovation sessions.
• Maintain accurate recipes, development records, sensory observations, decisions, and project documentation.
• Track emerging flavors, ingredients, cuisines, formats, technologies, equipment, consumer behaviors, and market intelligence.

Skills

Project management

Customer-facing

Sensory evaluation

Food science

Market insights

Education

Culinary degree from an accredited institution

Job description

Alamance Foods Inc. in Graham, NC seeks a Research Chef, Culinary Innovation to translate customer needs into innovative food and beverage solutions.

You will lead projects with culinary and sensory expertise, establishing gold standards and collaborating with Food Scientists for development and commercialization. The role combines kitchen creation with lab collaboration, customer presentations, and market exploration, while traveling up to 40% of the time.