Director of Dairy Formulation & Innovation

Dairy-Farmers-of-America,-Inc.; Springfield (MO); On-site; USD 170,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Dairy-Farmers-of-America, Inc. is seeking a senior formulation leader to drive end‑to‑end R&D for priority dairy platforms. You will translate briefs into scalable formulations, lead team development, and partner across functions to ensure speed-to-market and commercial readiness.

You will guide formulation strategy, cost-out initiatives, and IP development while maintaining strict safety, regulatory, and quality standards across large-scale operations.

Qualifications

• B.S. degree in Food Science, Dairy Science, Biological Science, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, or related discipline.
• Master’s degree or Ph.D. is desirable.
• 12+ years of progressive food, dairy, ingredient R&D experience with leadership.
• Proven track record commercializing new products and driving cost-out.
• Desirable expertise in dairy beverages, cultured dairy, and related systems.
• Willingness to travel 50-75% (up to 2 weeks per month).

Responsibilities

• Lead formulation development from concept through pilot plant readiness across dairy beverages, cultured systems, sauces, cheese, dry blends, concentrates, flavors, and other priority platforms.
• Translate customer briefs, business objectives, and consumer needs into actionable formulation plans with clear success criteria, timelines, risks, and decision points.
• Own ingredient selection, supplier qualification input, benchtop development, iterative prototyping, formula optimization, nutritional targets, and application validation.
• Use sensory science, analytical data, and customer end-use testing to ensure products meet taste, functionality, nutrition, and shelf-life targets.
• Drive disciplined documentation in R&D modeling solutions, including formula version control and commercialization readiness inputs.
• Define and validate processing conditions, hydration, heat treatment, hold times, packaging considerations for repeatable manufacturing processes.
• Lead or support process design and validation work where formulation decisions affect equipment capability and throughput.

Skills

Formulation science

Dairy chemistry

Project leadership

Communication

CRM/Salesforce

Cost modeling

Speed to market

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

B.S. in Food/Dairy/Related field

Master’s or Ph.D. desirable

Tools

CRM/Salesforce

Formula/cost modeling tools

Job description

Dairy-Farmers-of-America, Inc. is seeking a senior formulation leader to drive end‑to‑end R&D for priority dairy platforms. You will translate briefs into scalable formulations, lead team development, and partner across functions to ensure speed-to-market and commercial readiness.

You will guide formulation strategy, cost-out initiatives, and IP development while maintaining strict safety, regulatory, and quality standards across large-scale operations.