Application Lead - Savory; Food Ingredients R&D

Position: Application Lead - Savory (Food Ingredients R&D)
About Us
As a leading provider of high‑quality food and beverage ingredients, we work with farming communities across the globe to grow, source and produce ingredients that are good for consumers, farmers, and the world around us. We supply household food brands and manufacturers worldwide with cocoa, coffee, dairy, nuts and spices ingredients which are often grown on our own farms and estates and sourced from hundreds of thousands of farmers across ~50 countries.

Along with our diverse manufacturing and innovation capabilities, this means we can provide ingredients for a range of products, from a plant‑based latte mix to an almond based snack bar or a dairy‑free ice cream. Making a positive impact on people and planet is a core component of our Purpose, to be the change for good food and a healthy future.

With a deep‑rooted presence in the countries where our ingredients are grown, we are closer to farmers, enabling better quality, and more reliable, traceable, and transparent supply.

Food & Beverage Solutions
We have launched a new platform called Food and Beverage solutions, part of our ingredients and solutions reporting unit. This platform consolidates our current category solutions capabilities and innovation infrastructure. We support customers in developing new consumer concepts and application solutions at our four customer solution centres in Amsterdam, Bangalore, Chicago, and Singapore. Food and Beverage solutions leverages the strengths of our five product platforms, including their global and sustainable supply chain capabilities, a complementary portfolio of high‑quality food and ingredients, and extensive ingredient expertise.

This enables us to address a diverse range of customer requirements in the rapidly evolving Food and Beverage industry.

Job Description

Job Title:

Application Lead – Savoury

Location:

Singapore

Function:  Innovation

Reporting manager:  Customer Solutions Centre (CSC) Head Singapore/APAC

Position Overview
The Savoury Lead is responsible for defining and driving the Savoury & Culinary application strategy within CSC Singapore, overseeing end‑to‑end product development, customer solutioning, and technical capability building. This role extends beyond execution to provide technical leadership across all savoury dry, wet, and emulsified systems, ensuring scalable, high‑impact solutions across QSR, Food service, and B2B segments.

Key Responsibilities

Product Development & Technical Leadership
Define formulation strategies across categories and applications.

Ensure integration of ingredient functionality (e.g. flavours, extracts, hydrocolloids, starches) into robust formulations.

Guide development of multifunctional systems adaptable across applications.

Drive standardisation and development of base formulations and modular systems.

Translate concepts across formats (e.g. snack seasoning to meat systems, wet to dry platforms).

Sensory & Reverse Engineering Excellence
Establish structured sensory frameworks and evaluation protocols.

Lead product benchmarking and reverse engineering into scalable formats.

Translate sensory gaps into formulation strategies and system improvements.

Build sensory guidance across team to ensure consistent product delivery.

Customer Solutioning & Business Impact
Lead technical engagement with key customers across QSR, Food service, and B2B.

Translate customer briefs, issues, and challenges into innovation opportunities.

Drive co‑creation sessions, prototypes, and demonstrations.

Partner with commercial teams to support customer conversion and growth.

Team Leadership & Capability Building
Manage and develop a team of 2–3 Solution Specialists.

Provide technical mentorship and coaching on product design and scale‑up.

Ensure adherence to development SOPs, documentation, and best practices.

Align and guide senior specialists and category managers under broader savoury agenda.

Scale‑Up & Manufacturing Integration
Oversee translation from lab to pilot and plant scale.

Ensure formulations meet processing, cost, and manufacturability requirements.

Guide troubleshooting of scale‑up challenges across internal and external manufacturing.

Drive alignment between R&D, Quality,…