Research And Development Manager

The R&D Manager is responsible for leading PMAD's research and development function, including formulation, sample development, product improvement, customer feasibility review, commercialization readiness, and R&D to-production transfer for PMAD's private‑label and white‑label CPG manufacturing business. This is a hands‑on technical leadership role for a small but highly visible R&D function. The R&D Manager converts customer concepts, sales priorities, production realities, ingredient availability, quality requirements, and PMAD's manufacturing capabilities into documented, scalable, compliant, and commercially viable products.

The role may supervise R&D Associates or other assigned R&D personnel as the department grows.

• Manage PMAD's R&D pipeline, including product‑development requests, sample priorities, formula revisions, troubleshooting needs, internal innovation, and commercialization projects.
• Translate customer concepts and business priorities into practical R&D plans, timelines, sample requirements, resource needs, and decision points.
• Maintain visibility into R&D priorities, project status, customer‑development risks, resource constraints, formula‑change risks, and commercialization timelines.
• Coordinate R&D priorities with Sales, Customer Success, QA/QC, Procurement, Production, Packaging, Warehouse, Finance, and Operations leadership.
• Build repeatable R&D routines that reduce reliance on memory, informal formula notes, uncontrolled spreadsheets, or single‑person knowledge.
• Support department growth by helping define role clarity, training needs, tools, trackers, SOP needs, and scalable R&D workflows. Formulation, Sample Development, and Product Improvement
• Lead formulation and product‑development work across applicable PMAD product formats, including gummies, center‑fill products, blister products, liquid fills, powders, chocolates, and other PMAD‑supported product lines.
• Develop, improve, and document recipes, formulas, ingredients, process steps, target specifications, sensory attributes, process notes, and sample records.
• Oversee prototype development, bench samples, trial batches, pilot work, reformulations, ingredient substitutions, and flavor, texture, color, appearance, and performance adjustments.
• Evaluate ingredient functionality, active load, process stability, customer requirements, manufacturability, sensory feedback, and packaging fit during product development.
• Ensure sample work is clearly labeled, traceable, controlled, protected, and prepared according to approved R&D instructions and PMAD quality expectations.
• Protect confidential customer formulas, prototypes, samples, specifications, product concepts, development records, and proprietary information.

• Lead the movement of products from concept to sample, sample to approved formula, approved formula to production‑ready documentation, and production‑ready documentation to commercial manufacturing.
• Partner with QA/QC to confirm specification readiness, testing needs, release criteria, label considerations, documentation controls, customer approvals, and quality approval requirements before commercial use.
• Partner with Production and Packaging to confirm that formulas and processes can be manufactured at scale using PMAD's equipment, staffing, batch sizes, sanitation practices, environmental controls, and packaging formats.
• Prepare or support R&D‑to‑production transfer materials, including approved formulas, process parameters, ingredient and packaging requirements, quality checks, yield expectations, labor assumptions, sanitation considerations, and training needs.
• Support trial batching, pilot runs, scale‑up batches, first production runs, and production troubleshooting that may require formulation, ingredient, process, equipment, or packaging adjustments.
• Escalate manufacturability, quality, cost, timeline, equipment, material, or customer‑approval risks before PMAD commits to pricing, samples, or production deadlines.

• Ensure R&D activities follow approved SOPs, cGMP expectations, sanitation requirements,…