Culinary Innovation Recipe Developer

Summary

At Daily Harvest we take care of food, so our food can take care of you. We’re not a trend. We’re not a supplement. We’re clean food that fits your life. Our food is powered by plants, grown rather than engineered, frozen for a reason, and the easiest way to eat the rainbow.  We believe in a better, organic and regenerative farming system, for people and for the planet. Our team is collaborative, driven, and future-thinking. 

This role reports to the Senior Director of Culinary R&D on the Culinary R&D Team. The Culinary Innovation Recipe Developer is responsible for supporting the Culinary R&D team with a variety of business-critical workflows and projects. This position will be responsible for partnering closely with cross-functional teams across the company—including Operations (Procurement, Production Planning, Logistics), Marketing & Creative, Nutrition & Regulatory, and our Retail & Sales team—to bring new food concepts from idea to execution at scale. This position will assist with developing new recipes to support our innovation pipeline, but may also occasionally help with existing category optimizations and line extensions. This position will spend most of the week in the test kitchen, developing recipes, tweaking recipes, and preparing benchtop samples for a variety of needs—tastings, retailer pitches, internal & external events, consumer research, etc. This person will support the rest of the team in maintaining our ingredient inventory and working with the Procurement team to receive, record and evaluate the taste, quality, sensory attributes, and nutrition of new ingredients. This is a hybrid role with 3 days a week in-office in Lower Manhattan required.  

Responsibilities

• Assist with recipe development for both net-new innovation, and line extensions, depending on our innovation strategy and business needs
• Help maintain a sparkling clean and well-organized test kitchen, and ensure the kitchen is stocked with ingredients, tools and supplies, and that ingredients (dry, refrigerated, frozen) are organized
• Work on recipe optimizations and adjustments to drive production & cost efficiencies, flavor consistency, or nutritional & quality improvements
• Support leadership tastings, product cuttings, and evaluations by preparing materials, coordinating schedules, and documenting feedback
• Support coordination, assembly & shipping of samples for external testing (shelf life studies, cook validation, protein testing, shelf life extension, packaging stress testing, etc.) and for prospective retailers
• Provide support & produce samples for consumer testing, photo shoots, and internal/external events, as needed
• Assist the team with packaging and label reviews - checking for content accuracy and typos
• Coordinate gathering portfolio performance data, customer feedback, and quality insights from cross-functional teams to identify optimization opportunities and present clear cross-functional next steps
• Point of contact for all Culinary R&D shipments and Procurement ingredient samples - shipping/receiving, evaluating, and recording attributes (ex. raw materials, new launches, trial samples, R&D samples, etc.) 
• Assist with quality control checks for all finished goods that require it - whether for recipe optimizations or first runs of new innovation
• Manage the receipt of various weekly perishable shipments from production facilities and ingredient suppliers
• Support cleanup & maintenance of our product specifications, including supporting the transition of our nutrition platform and recipe data to a consolidated Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system
• Evaluate samples of raw materials or finished goods that arrive to HQ for shelf life extension or general quality control

• Build proficiency with our nutrition platform, ERP system, and other internal systems for recipe and data entry

Requirements

• You have a Culinary degree required or a BS degree, ideally in a food, agriculture or nutrition-related field
• 5+ years working in the food industry in recipe or new product development, ideally in better-for-you products; experience developing Consumer Packaged Goods in a corporate setting and/or working with third party manufacturers is a plus
• Computer literacy & experience with Microsoft Outlook, Word & Excel
• Strong organizational skills, attention to detail, and ability to manage projects over several weeks
• Clear communication and interpersonal skills, and ability to work independently & cross-functionally
• Detail and process-oriented with an ability to relentlessly follow up, get alignment, and ensure next steps are clear
• Comfortable with change, a fast-paced work environment, and some level of ambiguity
• You are a learner, always seeking to improve yourself, your team, and the world around you - to you, there’s nothing more exciting than a new challenge you can learn and grow from
• You contribute to a fun, engaged work environment and assume positive intent of your colleagues
• Lover of food culture and trends, ear to the ground on what’s new, trendy and next in food and beverage – natural, organic and better-for-you F&B is a plus

• Open to the following profiles: Food R&D Scientist, Recipe Developer, Product Developer (CPG), Culinary Innovation Specialist, New Product Development (NPD) Associate, Food Technologist, Culinary Scientist, Test Kitchen Chef/Cook, Culinary Project Manager, or R&D Chef, Recipe Tester