Development Technologist

Primary

Location:

Mitcham, United Kingdom.

As a Development Technologist, you will support the successful development and delivery of new and existing products across our Food service & QSR portfolio. You will work closely with internal teams, suppliers and customers to bring concepts to life from kitchen development through to production, and maintain a professional, organised, and customer‑ready development environment at the Zafron Foods site.

• Support New Product Development (NPD) projects from customer brief through to launch.
• Assist with Existing Product Development (EPD) and product optimisation activities.
• Prepare and deliver high‑quality development samples for customers and internal stakeholders.
• Support recipe scale‑up and factory trial processes.
• Assist with raw material testing, ingredient evaluations, and value engineering initiatives.
• Maintain accurate recipe, specification, and development data.
• Support customer visits, presentations and first production runs.
• Attend customer meetings alongside NPD Lead Managers where required.
• Participate in daily tasting panels and ingredient reviews.
• Build strong working relationships across departments and functions.
• Keep up to date with market trends, new ingredients, packaging developments, and innovation opportunities through supplier engagement and industry workshops.

• Curious, creative, and solutions‑focused.
• Comfortable working independently in a fast‑paced environment.
• Customer‑oriented with a commercial mindset.
• A strong team player who builds positive relationships.
• Passionate about quality and continuous improvement.

• Essential:
  Experience with in FMCG, food manufacturing, or food development, ideally within sauce manufacturing or related categories.
• Essentials:
  Passion for food innovation and product development; strong organisational skills and attention to detail; excellent communication and interpersonal skills; ability to manage multiple tasks and priorities effectively; proactive and self‑motivated; good computer literacy and data management skills.
• Desirable:
  Experience working with sauces, dressings, marinades or similar liquid food products; commercial kitchen or culinary experience; advanced Food Hygiene certification.
• Full UK driving licence.

Structured onboarding and hands‑on training across key systems, food safety standards, customer requirements and technical processes, with ongoing opportunities to develop technical expertise, broaden industry knowledge and advance your career within Solina.

We are open to talents of all backgrounds. Our recruitment process is based on competencies, and we openly welcome all candidates of all types according to our DEI Commitment.