Ingredients Product Developer
Listed on 2026-01-24
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Manufacturing / Production
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Business
Overview
Job title: Ingredients Product Developer
Reports to: Head of Innovation
Department: New Product Development
Location: Community Foods Ltd, 29-31 Eastways Ind. Estate, Witham
Hours per week: 40 hours (08.00 – 17.00)
Job type: Permanent
Introduction /The Role
At Community Foods, we’re passionate about creating naturally delicious, wholesome snacks made from dried fruit, nuts and seeds. As a trusted supplier to the UK’s leading retailers & manufacturers, we bring together culinary creativity, technical excellence and operational know-how to deliver products that delight consumers and perform brilliantly in production. We’re a company that celebrates food at its most natural — simple ingredients, crafted with care, and developed with integrity.
The Role:
We are seeking a creative, commercially minded, disruptive Food Product Developer to join our team in a leading manufacturer of dried fruit, nuts and seeds. This role blends hands-on product creation with customer-facing innovation.
You will support our sales team with compelling Bakery;
Cereal, ingredient-led concepts, turn customer and consumer insights into actionable innovation, and work closely with factory and technical teams to bring new products to life for our Bakery, Cereal, Ingredient and B2B customers.
This is a perfect role for an NPD professional with strong bakery, cereal, ingredients & snacking experience – working within the manufacturing space, a passion for ingredient-led innovation, and the confidence to engage directly with customers.
Key Responsibilities- Partner with the Industrial Sales team to support the rapid expansion of our ingredients division.
- Be an integral part of product development presentations and customer visits to a wide range of ‘industrial’ clients, including the UK’s largest bakeries, snack product producers and breakfast cereal manufacturers.
- Develop bakery, breakfast cereal & snacking concepts for B2B customers and product prototypes showcasing our dried fruit, nuts, and seeds.
- Attend customer meetings to showcase ideas, capabilities, presentation decks and ingredients to inspire and motivate customers.
- Work with the Marketing/Sales team to gather and interpret customer insights, category data and food trends.
- Translate insights into clear opportunity spaces and innovative ingredient concepts.
- Build professional presentation decks (PowerPoint) to support customer pitches.
- Create new bakery, breakfast cereal & snacking products using our ingredients, including breads, cakes, bars, snacks, muffins and premium concepts.
- Develop recipes and benchtop samples suitable for customer demonstrations.
- Work directly with external suppliers and our procurement team to discover and bring into the business new ingredients and concepts.
- Ensure concepts align with customer briefs, category needs and commercial viability.
- Responsible for building accurate and deliverable product costings – working with our Commercial Finance Analyst.
- Drive and oversee the Critical path for developing the right product, on time – first time, working closely with our Innovation Co-ordinator and process development manager.
- Work closely with Technical and Operations to scale up new concepts into factory production.
- Support trials, troubleshoot issues, and ensure smooth handover from kitchen to factory.
- Maintain full documentation including recipes, specs and process notes.
- Work collaboratively with Technical and Operations to support trial preparation and sample requests.
- Maintain accurate records for recipes, formulations, specifications and packaging briefs.
- Occasionally assist with retail development projects, sample builds and customer submissions.
- Passion for food, flavour and innovation with experience in product development essential.
- Strong organisational skills with the ability to manage multiple tasks at once.
- Confident communicator who enjoys collaborating across teams.
- Proactive, curious and eager to learn about food manufacturing and ingredients.
- Comfortable working hands-on in a development kitchen environment.
- Compe…
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