Senior Innovation Scientist; North Brunswick Township, NJ

Summary

Location:

North Brunswick, NJ (on-site); anticipated relocation to NYC 2027

Reports to:

Director, R&D Innovation

Position Summary: We are seeking a Senior Scientist to join our Innovation R&D team and lead the development of new products and technologies across our growing dairy portfolio.

This role is responsible for driving innovation projects from concept through commercialization, combining strong scientific expertise, hands-on product development, and effective project leadership. The successful candidate will spend time in the laboratory developing and testing products while also leading pilot and plant trials, managing project timelines, influencing key stakeholders, and partnering across functions to deliver successful launches.

The ideal candidate is a highly collaborative and organized scientist with deep technical knowledge, hands-on product development experience, exceptional project management skills, and intellectual curiosity. They thrive in a fast-paced environment, enjoy solving complex technical challenges, and effectively communicate and influence decisions across cross-functional teams.

• Lead product and technology development projects from concept through commercialization across the dairy category.
• Design, formulate, and optimize products to meet sensory, nutritional, technical, operational and cost objectives.
• Conduct hands-on bench-top formulation, prototype development and product optimization activities.
• Design and execute experiments, analyze results, and translate findings into actionable recommendations.
• Apply knowledge of ingredient functionality, food chemistry, and processing technologies to solve technical challenges and improve product performance.
• Identify opportunities for product, ingredient, and technology innovation that support business growth and strategic priorities.
• Stay informed on consumer, market, and industry trends to inspire innovation.

• Lead multiple innovation work streams simultaneously by developing project plans, managing priorities, timelines and deliverables, and proactively identifying risks and solutions to keep projects on track.
• Maintain organized project documentation, technical reports, trial summaries, and development records.
• Communicate project progress, key learnings, recommendations and critical decisions to stakeholders and leadership.

• Lead technical development through pilot, plant trial, scale-up and commercialization phases.
• Partner closely with NPD, Quality, Regulatory, Procurement, Engineering and other functions as needed to ensure successful product launches.
• Collaborate with internal Technical Development and Product Excellence R&D teams to support scale-up, manufacturing readiness, operational execution and successful product launch implementation.
• Support and travel to pilot plant and manufacturing trials as needed to ensure successful implementation of products and processes.
• Assess technical feasibility, product stability, manufacturability, ingredient supply considerations and commercialization readiness throughout development.
• Collaborate with ingredient suppliers, external vendors, and technical partners to evaluate solutions, support development activities and accelerate project execution.

• Build strong partnerships across internal R&D and cross-functional teams to drive alignment and project success.
• Clearly communicate technical concepts, recommendations and project risks to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Influence decisions through scientific expertise, data-driven recommendations, and collaborative problem-solving.
• Represent R&D in project…