The role:As the Director of R&D, Product Innovation, you will build and lead Nuts.com's in-house recipe development capability - a brand-new function at the heart of our innovation and quality agenda. You'll develop original recipes for net new product lines, create insourced formulations for products we currently outsource, and be a champion for our quality mission. You'll also extend our recipe development capabilities to our B2B business, creating custom and private label formulations for wholesale customers.
Reporting to the Senior Manager of Category Management & Merchandising, you'll sit within the Merchandising team and partner closely with Operations, Supply Chain, FSQA, and Commercialization to take formulations from concept to scaled production. This is a hands-on, high-impact role for a food scientist or product developer who thrives on variety: you'll juggle multiple innovation and value creation projects at once, moving nimbly between chocolate, confections, and shelf-stable snacks. As our innovation pipeline scales, this role offers the opportunity to build out a dedicated Innovation team and shape the future of what Nuts.com makes.
How you'll make an impact:- Develop new, commercially viable recipes for net new product lines across shelf-stable snacks, chocolate, and confections
- Create insourced formulations for currently outsourced products in support of value creation (VCP) and margin initiatives
- Standardize and refine recipes for existing in-house made items to improve consistency and quality
- Develop custom and private label recipe formulations for B2B customers, partnering with the sales team to meet customer specifications and requirements
- Take in innovation and VCP briefs from Merchandising and translate them into scalable, production-ready formulations
- Partner with Commercialization to scale new formulations from bench to full production
- Collaborate cross-functionally with Merchandising, Operations, Supply Chain, and FSQA to ensure formulations meet quality, food safety, cost, and operational requirements
- Manage multiple concurrent development projects, balancing speed to market with rigor and quality
- Help build the foundation for a growing Innovation function, including exploring new formats and recipe platforms as we scale
What you'll bring:- Bachelor's degree in Food Science, Culinary Science, or related field preferred
- Minimum 8 years of experience in food product development or R&D, preferably in shelf-stable snacks, chocolate/confections, CPG, or food manufacturing
- Strong track record developing commercially viable, scalable recipe formulations for shelf-stable snacks; experience with chocolate strongly preferred
- Working knowledge of food safety, quality, and regulatory considerations in formulation development
- Experience partnering with operations and commercialization teams to scale recipes from bench to production
- Agility and self-motivation, with the ability to juggle many projects at once in a fast-moving environment
- A highly collaborative working style and strong cross-functional communication skills
- Bonus: experience with financial modeling of cost impacts for new formulations
What we offer- A high-growth and rewarding role in a foundationally strong and rapidly evolving business
- Annual Salary Range: $190,000 - $200,000 plus annual bonus
- Excellent benefits including a 401K Match
- Paid Maternity, Adoption and Paternity leave
- And all the Nuts.com snacks your heart desires + a 40% employee discount
