Manager, Sauce, Licensing & Culinary

Manager, Sauce, Licensing & Culinary Applications

Join to apply for the Manager, Sauce, Licensing & Culinary Applications role at Ocean Spray Cranberries

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 co‑branding 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 mixture of skills that require 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.

• Represent the team as an innovation thought leader and partner with marketing to drive expansion of our sauce and fresh fruit business through new product innovation, culinary applications and use occasions.
• Lead team to create product formulations and 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.
• Guide team through our Stage Gate process, from Ideation through Launch, ensuring sufficient technical milestones are met and project management rigor is effectively incorporated into project plans. Guide development of robust learning plans with consumers at the center.

• Serve as the culinary and product development lead for licensed product initiatives, ensuring alignment with brand standards and licensing agreements.
• Work with legal, regulatory and Food Safety teams to ensure all licensed products meet food safety standards and respect intellectual property rights.
• Act as a liaison between internal teams and external licensors, ensuring product deliverables meet expectations and timelines.

• Drive the development of innovative food concepts and applications to support Ingredient and Food Service Sales.
• Lead the culinary team as they 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.
• Manage resources to execute samples and live customer culinary demonstrations to enhance sales.
• Support the business team with Chef-to-Chef collaboration and partnership with key customers to enhance understanding of customer innovation pipeline requirements.
• Establish a global network of culinary partners to ensure local relevance, share best practices, successful applications and amplify the culinary team’s footprint.
• Oversee the creation of culinary concepts and prototypes as inspiration for new products that incorporate the latest flavor and ingredient trends and consumer insights.
• Support Marketing and Sales with advertising and social media content as needed.

• Work…