Manager, Sauce, Licensing & Culinary

Position: Manager, Sauce, Licensing & Culinary Applications
Ocean Spray is hiring for a(n) Manager, Sauce, Licensing & Culinary Applications! We’re a team of farmers, thinkers, creators, and doers. Whatever your title, whatever your role — it always comes back to this: we’re a farmer-owned co-op where everyone rolls up their sleeves to get the job done. Three maverick farmers started it all — and we’ve been making our own way ever since.

The Manager of Sauce, Licensing and Culinary Applications, leads the global product development of sauce innovation & brand maintenance, supports licensing efforts and provides culinary support and global culinary connectivity with strategic partners in collaboration with cross functional business partners underpinned with food science fundamentals and culinary creativity.
This role is accountable for Ocean Spray Cranberry Sauce formulations and innovation to drive growth across multiple channels of trade, ensuring cobranding products meet brand equity standards across multiple licensing partnerships, and for Culinary applications, recipe and global culinary network to support our B2B Ingredient business and Food Service Sales... This requires a mix of skills that requires comfort in both a test-kitchen space as well as a laboratory.
Cross-functional collaboration is crucial as this role works closely with various functions including R&D, Marketing, Manufacturing, Sales and external customers and partners to translate concepts and culinary ideas into scalable, compliant products for consumption. This role combines Food Science and Culinary expertise, with intellectual curiosity and strategic brand stewardship to drive product differentiation and market success. Given the nature of the responsibilities, this role is designed to be in the Lakeville, MA office five days per week.
** A Day in the Life...**
* ** Product Development Lead Sauce Product Development** – Lead product development for our cranberry sauce business to drive expansion of our sauce business through new product innovation and use occasions.  Lead team to create product specifications that can translate from bench to large scale manufacturing and meet food safety, quality, regulatory compliance and product stability for target markets and channels of trade
* ** Technical Stage Gate** - Guide team through our Technical Stage Gate process, from Ideation through Launch, ensuring sufficient technical and project management rigor is effectively incorporated into project plans.  Guide development of robust learning plans for all commercialization projects.
** Licensing**
* ** Support Licensing Partnerships** - Serve as the culinary and product development lead for licensed product initiatives, ensuring alignment with brand standards and licensing agreements.
* ** Ensure Food Safety, Regulatory & IP Compliance**:
Work with legal, regulatory and Food Safety teams to ensure all licensed products meet food safety standards and respect intellectual property rights.
* ** Partner Collaboration**:
Act as a liaison between internal teams and external licensors, ensuring product deliverables meet expectations and timelines.
** Culinary Applications**
* ** Lead Culinary Application Strategy**:
Drive the development of innovative food concepts and applications to support Ingredient and Food Service Sales.  Collaborate with Sales and Marketing to create recipes and prototypes that are tailored to specific customer needs and extend our ingredients and products into new occasions and channels. . Coordinate and execute samples and live customer culinary demonstrations to enhance sales.
* ** Chef to Chef Collaboration**:
Support the business team with Chef to Chef collaboration and partnership with key customers to enhance understanding of customer innovation pipeline requirements.
* ** Collaboration/External Partnerships** – Establish a global network of Culinary partners to ensure local relevance, share best practices, successful applications and amplify the culinary team’s footprint.
* ** Prototype Development**:
Oversee the creation of culinary concepts and prototypes as inspiration for new products, that incorporate the latest flavor and ingredient trends and consumer insights.
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