Product Development Scientist

Overview

Product Development Scientist role at Ajinomoto Health & Nutrition North America, Inc.

Ajinomoto Cambrooke was founded to develop better solutions for people with PKU and has expanded into additional therapeutic areas. The company emphasizes an entrepreneurial mindset, collaboration, and opportunities to learn and develop. This position sits in the Corporate Office located in Ayer, MA and supports the medical nutrition business by developing new and revising existing product formulations to meet target characteristics that deliver positive patient outcomes through therapeutic nutrition.

• Collaborate with Directors of Medical Nutrition, Marketing, and Sales to ensure desired nutritional levels are achieved throughout product shelf-life and to incorporate patient insights on flavor, texture, and palatability.
• Contribute to ideation and exploration for uses of new ingredients and new business ventures in additional disease-states reliant on specialized medical nutrition.
• Co-create and execute medical formula products against ACI’s strategic R&D roadmap to support the corporate strategy while meeting internal quality expectations.
• Provide scientific support to leadership in areas of product development, clinical development, product manufacturing, and new ingredient compounds or product initiatives.
• Research and help develop clinical evidence supporting existing and new products and ingredient compounds for use in commercial activities.
• Present ACI’s clinical evidence at conferences, clinician meetings, and other forums when appropriate.
• Ensure existing and new products, processes, or ingredient compounds have strong intellectual property protection to provide a sustained competitive advantage.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

• Minimum bachelor’s degree in food science, nutrition, or related field;
  Master’s degree preferred. PhD, Pharm
  
  D a plus.
• 5+ years of experience in product development, with ability to take concepts from bench top to commercialization for nutritional beverages and/or nutritional powder blends.
• 5+ years in basic and applied R&D, preferably in small/mid-sized nutrition, food and/or biotech company; experience with food/beverage formulation and manufacture of nutritional products meeting stability, sensory, and nutritional requirements; direct experience with aseptic processing / Tetra Pak a plus.
• Expert scientific knowledge in food science with emphasis on product development involving ingredient interactions and process effects on micronutrients.
• Experience with nutritional modeling software and familiarity with FDA regulations (EU regulations a plus).
• Ability to design and monitor product shelf-life procedures (regular and accelerated) for nutritional products.
• Strong translational science background converting basic nutrition insights into consumable products.
• Ability to source ingredients and build relationships with vendors to meet product specifications.
• Strong understanding of cross-functional collaboration and how business units interact to enable product development and commercialization.
• Ability to define new product needs in terms of process needs and product characteristics, including organoleptic considerations and claims.
• Leadership mindset with a focus on innovation in product development.
• Knowledge of standard operating procedures related to product and process development and shelf-life determination.
• Understanding of food safety requirements and regulations; ability to review primary scientific literature related to nutrition.
• Strong communication skills to translate scientific concepts to non-technical audiences and teams.
• Understanding of ingredient interactions in food/beverage matrices across processing and shelf life.
• Ability to design shelf-life evaluation matrices considering composition, process impact, and other factors in medical nutrition product development.
• Understanding of macro- and micro-nutrient analytical procedures and their principles.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, cross-functional team environment with excellent analytical and organizational skills.

This position works in a food manufacturing environment…