Senior Cocoa & Chocolate Scientist

Want to deliver the Ultimate Chocolate Experience? Role

Title:

Senior Cocoa and Chocolate Scientist Site introduction:
Our Hectar Laing Development Centre site is the beating heart of innovation at pladis, a dynamic hub where creativity, science, and consumer insight come together to shape the future of snacking. Home to our Innovation, R&D, Regulatory, and Technical Insights teams, this site supports both pladis Global and UK&I, driving progress across our sweet and savoury portfolios. With a state-of-the-art pilot plant and a culture of collaboration, High Wycombe is our centre of excellence for research and development.

From the first spark of an idea to the final product on shelf, our teams work side by side to deliver exciting, high-quality snacks that delight consumers everywhere. It’s a place where every voice matters, and every innovation is powered by the passion and expertise of our people.

This is a critical role responsible for building the know-how on Cocoa and translate that into innovative and sustainable chocolate confectionery and baked products. This role will work closely with other functions, e.g. procurement, sensory, marketing, regulatory, etc., to ensure an agile and smooth translation of science to products. This role seats in the Global Innovation and Technology Team under the Breakthrough Product Director to ensure direct translation of opportunities against an ambitious and transformational breakthrough innovation strategy that is aligned to the growth ambition and sustainability aspirations of the company.

The role requires an individual who is competent and skilled at working across cultures and functions and collaborating to deliver with others. They need to be able to work effectively with external partners to identify appropriate opportunities and drive development of innovative solutions, best practice approaches and systems.

• Know-how on Cocoa Materials and Chocolate Technologies
• Translation of above to confectionary and baked applications
• Developing solutions to technical hurdles
• Providing a technical response to product challenges
• Owning and delivering test trials from small-bench to medium-pilot scale and support upscaling to factory scale.
• Managing project plans

Global R&D works hand in hand on many initiatives with partners in the other functions (both globally and within regions) to create strong competitive advantages for pladis including:
Ingredients Technologies and Innovation Product Innovation Portfolio transformation for Health and Happiness Sustainability (i.e. environment-friendly initiatives) Specifically on Breakthrough Cocoa programme, we need to:

• Define and deliver a medium to long term roadmap and align an agenda to drive innovation sustainability and productivity – build the internal cross-functional expertise and relationships to deliver that agenda.
• Support the Global Procurement team as we build strong and mid-term Sourcing Strategies.
• Build strong collaborative relationships with Suppliers to capture the best practices on the market and monitor project implementation.

The role will report to the Head of Global R&D Head of Cocoa Innovation*.

• Lead the creation and optimization of cocoa blends and chocolate products that engine Innovation pipeline.
• Build, curate and share deep knowledge of emerging cocoa processing methods, materials science and industry trends.
• Drive the development of proprietary and sustainable cocoa solutions, including cross-category product designs.
• Lead research and development of novel cocoa extenders, substitutes and flavour-modulating solutions.
• Own the end-to-end understanding of scalability, from bean processing through chocolate, confectionery and baked finished goods
• Lead prototyping cycles, pilot plant and factory trials, ensuring robust technical validation and readiness for launch.
• Provide expert technical support to operations, delivering solutions that balance quality, cost, performance and sustainability.
• Identify, develop and progress…