Principal Scientist, Essential Dairy and Yogurt
Danone
- Louisville, CO
- $110,000-165,000 per year
- Permanent
- Full-time
- Leverage deep scientific expertise to support and build on the technical development and excellence of the Yogurt BU.
- Supporting the Yogurt and Dairy businesses as a technical lead of Danone’s Research & Innovation team through technical leadership, product and process design support, and ingredient functionality mastery.
- Deliver nutritional breakthroughs, protectable technologies, and great-tasting, superior category innovations through expanded technical expertise in Yogurt, Dairy, and Dairy alternative foods, ingredient processing technologies, and functional ingredient interactions.
- Work closely with procurement, engineering, and our supplier base to identify potential innovation, renovation, and productivity opportunities.
- Scoping and developing new partnerships (universities, start-ups, new suppliers) to unlock technology solutions for productivity, product improvements, or new products while ensuring process capability.
- Identifying opportunities for novel, proprietary, patentable strategic research initiatives to develop technologies for the next generation of products in new and adjacent categories.
- Share and teach technical know-how on dairy/yogurt processing, nutrients (incorporation, handling...), and key ingredients such as dairy ingredients, hydrocolloids, fruit preps, etc.
- Develop product formulas, processing procedures, product, and raw material specifications to deliver consistent, high-quality, superior products that support business objectives.
- Independently plan and execute bench, pilot, and plant trials for new and improved products, analyze test results, and effectively translate these into effective next steps that lead to project successes
- Network with the global R&I community to share and bring in best practices from other parts of the world.
- You will possess one of the following:
- PhD degree in in Food Science, Dairy Science, Engineering, or closely related field with at least 10 years of relevant progressive experience
- Master's degree in Food science, Dairy Science, Engineering, or closely related field with at least 15 years of relevant progressive experience
- Bachelor's degree in Food science, Dairy Science, Engineering, or closely related field with at least 20 years of relevant progressive experience
- Your prior experience must include significant product development and/or research experience supporting dairy, yogurt and/or cultured dairy products.
- You will have a demonstrated track record of successfully commercializing dairy food products, establishing points of difference from existing products with consumers.
- Knowledge, Understanding, and interpretation of the patent landscape in Dairy and Dairy alternative food products
- You will have the ability to work autonomously to drive technical programs forward
- Strong technical skills in product formulation, industrial processes, ingredient functionality, and product-process interactions; preferred in-depth knowledge of dairy and non-dairy protein and functional ingredient technologies in yogurt and dairy foods processing.
- Knowledgeable in ingredient selection, formulation, processing equipment, and operating conditions for yogurt and high-protein dairy/ dairy alternative food products
- Extensive technical and theoretical knowledge of yogurt science and manufacturing processes
- Strong project management/organization and the ability to advocate and align key stakeholders (including non-technical leadership) on new technology or strategic research initiatives.
- Excellent communication skills (both written and oral) and the ability to interact with all company functions, including R&D, Marketing, Purchasing, and Operations.
- Comfortable operating in the fuzzy front-end area of innovation and passionate about creating, rapid prototyping, developing, and commercializing ideas under tight timelines.