R&D Manager — Food Innovation & Scale-Up

Pennsylvania Food Corporation; Portage (WI); On-site; USD 110,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Pennsylvania Food Corporation Portage, Wisconsin, United States, is seeking an experienced R&D Manager to lead research, product development, formulation, commercialization, and technical innovation for food manufacturing operations. You will own the development and scale-up of products from concept to launch while ensuring safety, regulatory compliance, quality, and financial targets.

You will serve as the technical bridge across Commercial, Operations, QA, Regulatory, Procurement, Supply

Responsibilities

• Lead new product development, product improvements, line extensions, and formula optimization initiatives aligned with business strategy, customer requirements, and manufacturing capabilities.
• Translate customer briefs, market opportunities, operational constraints, and commercial priorities into actionable R&D project plans.
• Conduct benchtop development, pilot trials, plant trials, product testing, sensory evaluations, and shelf-life studies.
• Develop formulas, processing parameters, product specifications, ingredient standards, and finished product requirements.
• Evaluate emerging ingredients, technologies, processing methods, and market trends to strengthen the product pipeline and improve product performance.
• Maintain accurate R&D documentation, including formulas, trial reports, test results, approvals, specifications, and change records.
• Ensure compliance with FDA/FSMA requirements, GMPs, HACCP, allergen controls, labeling, and internal quality systems.
• Partner with QA and Regulatory to approve ingredients, claims, labels, specifications, nutritional information, and finished product requirements.
• Support audit readiness by maintaining complete, accurate, and traceable technical documentation for products, ingredients, suppliers, and processes.
• Assess product and process risks related to food safety, allergens, labeling, microbial stability, shelf life, and customer requirements.
• Support investigations and corrective actions related to product quality, customer complaints, holds, deviations, and formula or process issues.
• Lead commercialization activities from concept approval through full-scale production launch, including project timelines, trial plans, risk assessments, and launch readiness reviews.
• Coordinate plant trials, process validations, first production runs, and post-launch reviews in partnership with Operations, QA, Sanitation, Maintenance, Procurement, and Supply Chain.
• Develop and validate processing parameters, yields, batch instructions, allergen controls, packaging requirements, and quality checkpoints for new or revised products.
• Identify commercialization risks and develop mitigation plans related to equipment capability, ingredient availability, sanitation/changeover needs, labor impact, throughput, shelf life, and cost.
• Ensure effective capacity planning, labor deployment, line balancing, and sanitation/changeover optimization to minimize downtime and risk.
• Partner with Procurement and suppliers to evaluate new ingredients, alternate sources, ingredient functionality, cost impacts, lead times, and quality risks.
• Support cost savings, margin improvement, and supply continuity through formula optimization, ingredient substitutions, yield improvement, and waste reduction.

Job description

Pennsylvania Food Corporation Portage, Wisconsin, United States, is seeking an experienced R&D Manager to lead research, product development, formulation, commercialization, and technical innovation for food manufacturing operations. You will own the development and scale-up of products from concept to launch while ensuring safety, regulatory compliance, quality, and financial targets.

You will serve as the technical bridge across Commercial, Operations, QA, Regulatory, Procurement, Supply