R&D Manager

Who We Are

At Jonny Pops, our team is empowered to make an impact at work every day from producing high-quality, innovative frozen novelties to spreading kindness one pop at a time. We look for bright and ambitious individuals who seek out challenges, thrive in fast-paced and high-growth environments, align with our core values, and get fulfilment from seeing their work transform the world around them.

Based in Elk River, MN, Jonny Pops develops, manufactures, distributes, and markets frozen novelties. Retailers from coast to coast including Target, Costco, Publix, Kroger, Cub, along with thousands of regional and local grocers make Jonny Pops part of their assortment.

Growing from a dorm room start-up in 2012, Jonny Pops’ mission is to make "A Better Pop for a Better World!" Jonny Pops leads the frozen novelties space in innovation and uses simple ingredients with no artificial dyes. Every pop stick includes a kind deed, spreading kindness every day.

Joining Jonny Pops is an exciting opportunity to be part of high-growth brand and have a direct impact on the company’s success. Join our team and help us make“A Better Pop, for a Better World!”

We are looking for a R&D Manager to help enable us to continue, and lead with, the creation and execution of our products and manufacturing methodology.

In this role, you will have the unique opportunity to leverage your strong technical, possibilities-thinking, and influence skills to advance projects from concept through commercialization. The R&D Manager helps lead the research and development function to drive innovation, product development, and technical excellence within the organization. This role is responsible for managing a team of scientists in the creation, improvement, and commercialization of strong innovation products.

The R&D Manager is responsible for partnering and collaborating across Production, QA, Engineering, Supply Chain, and other cross-functional partners to deliver results that meet business objectives, regulatory standard, and manufacturing requirements.

This role is expected to be on the manufacturing floor working on executing improvements and innovation 20% of the time while 80% of the time working on leading the team in creation/ideation.

• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of R&D scientists, technologists, and support staff
• Manage the R&D project portfolio, ensuring timely execution and alignment with business priorities.
• Manage quick-turn prototype development to support agile innovation cycles and customer/internal evaluations.
• Support building and maintaining a rolling pipeline of early-stage ideas through late-stage development.
• Set project milestones, timelines, and resource allocations in collaboration with cross-functional partners.
• Provide R&D leadership in early feasibility through commercialization of innovation and renovation as it pertains to the plant floor
• Design, develop and build experiments and trials to be implemented into manufacturing
• Partner with manufacturing and process engineering teams to scale new products from lab to plant.
• Oversee pilot plant trials, first production runs, and troubleshooting during scale-up.
• Manage multiple priorities and prioritize based on fast paced evolving business needs
• Collaborate/Initiate across Supply Chain, Engineering, Production and internal/external experts to advance ideas through feasibility and implementation

• Ensure all food safety protocols are met
• Engineer, design and build products with Food Safety, sanitation and cleanliness as a top priority.
• Clearly reflect food safety and quality as part of the JP brand, when planning and executing projects, and while interacting with relevant external and internal stakeholders.
• Follows, adheres and upholds GMP

• Bachelor’s degree or Masters Degree in Food Science, Food Technology, Food Engineering, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Chemical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, other related field and 3+ years of product development and commercialization experience.
• HACCP / FSMA - PCQI Certification preferred
• Demonstrated leadership skills with the…