Senior Food Technologist in Kettering

Job title: Senior Food / Process Technologist

Responsible to: Innovation and Sustainability Director / Head of Technical

Location: New Moon (Kettering) with some travel to Little HQ (Park Royal)

Little Moons are frozen and chilled mochi, a fusion of Eastern and Western cuisine – soft and chewy rice flour dough wrapped around balls of ice cream, cheesecake, or chocolate ganache to create a distinctive, bite-sized, and delicious dessert that’s bursting with flavour.

Their rollout across Europe has been pioneered by sister and brother duo Vivien and Howard Wong, who founded Little Moons in 2010. The product’s roots are in high-end restaurants, but over the last five years retail packs have swept the ice cream category in grocery and food service.

The business has rapidly established mochi across Europe and will exceed £50m in revenue in FY21/22.Based on experience in the USA, mochi ice cream is likely to make up 2-3% of the total ice cream category within 1-2 years.

We are very proud of the culture that we have built at Little Moons. Not to stroke our own egos, but we are a great bunch of people—smart, passionate, interesting, and funny—who work hard to support and live our values, all the while keeping our mission in our forethoughts.

The role

This is an exciting opportunity for a dynamic and driven Food / Process Technologist to join our site-based Technical team at our new-build factory in Kettering. This is a unique role as its responsibilities for the first 12 months will be focussed on the set-up and validation of the new site, following which the role will transition into business-as-usual responsibilities. The perfect candidate will have an obsession with understanding how food products are made, both in terms of the formulation science as well as the manufacturing process. They will love to get hands-on with the product and spend hours in the factory, combining both to become the expert in the products they make. This role will utilise this expertise to ensure all products transferred to the site launch with excellence, and later support on leading site technical initiatives, landing innovation and continuous improvement projects as business-as-usual.

Key Responsibilities

• Support the commissioning and product validation of the technology transfer into a new manufacturing facility, delivering against the defined brand and business requirements.
• Provide food science technical expertise for the project; understand the science behind the product, the critical process parameters in its manufacture and how these influence key product attributes.
• Support the product data collection for knowledge transfer; measuring process parameters and product attributes against a statistical measurement plan to build a benchmark of the current products and process.
• Organise and execute lab assessments and factory trials in accordance with the defined validation plan. Completing technical reports with the analysis and interpretation of results, that lead to conclusions and recommendations that inform the project.
• Use food science to troubleshoot issues highlighted during trials and commissioning, working closely with Production and Engineering teams to find solutions.
• Support the handover of product validation to the site team, inputting on factory specification, SOPs and Quality Standards documentation creation.
• For BAU: manage, develop and support the food and process technologist team (2-3 direct reports) to deliver and grow in their careers.
• For BAU technical site support: maintaining product safety rationales, raw material risk assessments and product compositional control.
• For BAU innovation; work closely with cross-functional teams to launch high quality products and packaging which scale efficiently within the factory and are delivered to launch timings. This may include supporting the selection and assessment of new equipment.
• For BAU supply continuity / continuous improvement; work with the Product Development, Process and/or Procurement teams to implement ingredient / packaging changes to ensure continuity and efficiency of supply without impact on product quality or consumer perception.

Essential requirements:

• Experience in a food / process technologist or R&D Scientist role
• working with comparable products / ingredients is highly desired i.e. dairy, ice cream or bakery
• degree, preferably in food science, technology or engineering
• Product transfer experience is preferred
• People management experience is preferred
• A science and data led approach
• Statistical analysis capability
• Self-motivated and excellent communicator
• Understanding of HACCP and site technical standards
• People management experience is desirable but not essential

To be engaged, you must feel included and valued, so we have built, and nurtured, a culture where inclusiveness is not a buzzword, but a way of being.

Our approach to diversity is simple —it’s about embracing everyone, and everyone is welcome at Little Moons. We are committed to welcoming everyone, regardless of gender identity, orientation or expression. We are diverse in age, race, physical or mental ability, ethnicity, and perspective. Our diversity fuels our innovation, bring diversity of thought, and connects us closer to our customers and the communities we serve.

All applicants must have the right to work in the United Kingdom.