Product Development Specialist – Bread & Bakery Manufacturing

Description Job Overview Product Development Specialist – Bread & Bakery Manufacturing Rotella’s Italian Bakery, Inc. | LaVista / Gretna, Nebraska About the Role

Rotella’s Italian Bakery Inc. is hiring a Product Development Specialist to help develop, improve, test, and commercialize bread and bakery products in a high-volume manufacturing environment. This is a hands-on role for someone who understands dough, baking, production scale-up, and the discipline required to make products consistently on commercial bakery lines.

• Develop, test, and refine bread, bun, roll, and specialty bakery products from concept through production launch.
• Create and adjust formulas with attention to dough characteristics, fermentation, proofing, bake profile, texture, flavor, appearance, shelf life, and consistency.
• Partner closely with production, quality, purchasing, sales, and operations teams to ensure new and existing products can be manufactured efficiently at scale.
• Conduct bench trials, pilot runs, production trials, sensory evaluations, and product improvement work.
• Translate customer needs, market trends, and operational requirements into products that are practical, profitable, and repeatable.
• Document formulas, ingredients, processing steps, production parameters, testing results, and finished product specifications.
• Support troubleshooting for product quality issues related to dough handling, mixing, proofing, baking, cooling, slicing, packaging, and shelf life.
• Identify ingredient, process, or equipment opportunities that improve quality, efficiency, cost, or manufacturability.
• Maintain a strong focus on food safety, quality systems, sanitation, allergen control, GMPs, and consistency.

• Experience in bread, bakery, dough, baked goods, or food manufacturing product development preferred.
• Strong understanding of baking or food science, ingredient functionality, fermentation, mixing, proofing, baking, cooling, packaging, and finished product quality.
• Hands-on experience with formulas, production trials, ingredient substitutions, troubleshooting, and scale-up from test batch to production.
• Ability to work closely with production, quality, purchasing, sales, and leadership to balance product quality, cost, manufacturability, and customer requirements.
• Food science, baking science, culinary, or related education is preferred; equivalent bakery manufacturing experience will be considered.
• Strong communication, documentation, organization, and follow-through skills.
• Comfortable spending time on the production floor and working directly with operators, supervisors, and quality teams.

We are looking for someone who is curious, practical, detail-oriented, and passionate about bread. The right person will enjoy improving products, solving manufacturing challenges, and helping bring bakery ideas to life in a way that works in real production. This position requires both creativity and strong manufacturing discipline.

• Competitive compensation based on experience
• Health, dental, vision, and life insurance
• 401(k) and profit-sharing opportunities
• Paid time off
• Paid Holidays

• 401(k)
• Dental insurance
• Health insurance
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Vision insurance

• Experience in bread, bakery, dough, baked goods, or food manufacturing product development preferred.
• Strong understanding of baking or food science, ingredient functionality, fermentation, mixing, proofing, baking, cooling, packaging, and finished product quality.
• Hands-on experience with formulas, production trials, ingredient substitutions, troubleshooting, and scale-up from test batch to production.
• Ability to work closely with production, quality, purchasing, sales, and leadership to balance product quality, cost, manufacturability, and customer requirements.
• Food science, baking science, culinary, or related education is preferred; equivalent bakery manufacturing experience will be considered.
• Strong communication, documentation, organization, and follow-through skills.
• Comfortable spending time on the production floor and working directly with operators, supervisors, and quality teams.