Scientist

Position WL1B

Scientist – Ice Cream R&DNorth America

Background & Purpose of the Job

​​Ice Cream is a fun, very innovative, competitive, and fast-paced category. Unilever’s Ice Cream Business Unit in North America looks after a strong portfolio of brands: Ben & Jerry’s, Breyers, Good Humor, Klondike, Magnum, Popsicle, Talenti and Yasso.

​As a member of the Ice Cream R&D team, you will support the R&D activities to deliver the Ice Cream program, ranging from innovation, renovation, quality improvement and margin enhancement. You will work as a member of a cross-functional project team to deliver to deliver the brand’s program and business objectives

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Who You Are & What You’ll Do

​​You love to win and have fun doing it: ​You are passionate about product development, and you are customer/consumer focused. You are comfortable with multi-tasking and operating in a fast paced, multi-faceted, and multi-cultural environment​

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​You’re a dot connector:​You are a problem solver: you break an issue into smaller parts to examine them. You build and manage relationships with cross-functional teams, key stakeholders, and strategic vendor partners to enable progress.​

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​You’re a paradox navigator:  Youleverage your technical knowledge and experience, awareness of culinary and product trends and consumer insights to deliver superior new products that meet the project and business deliverables.

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​You’re a changemaker:​You can identify and address emerging issues as well as set and manage priorities and continuously improve processes and practices​

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​What you’ll do:

​Support/lead projects:

• ​Execute agreed R&D activities to deliver the brand’s program, ranging from innovation, renovation, quality improvement and margin enhancement.

• ​Works as a member of a cross-functional project team to deliver projects on time in full.

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​Develop products:

• ​Independently design products against simple product briefs, design/execute test protocols for the various technical aspects of projects as required (e.g., prototype development and scale-up, shelf-life testing, analytical testing, etc.)

• ​Lead the process of specification/label creation in SAP PLM from the request to the approved status; Be the material expert and lead creation of new specifications for new ingredients.

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​Provide technical and product guidance:

• ​Actively participate and/or represent R&D in Supply Chain and Marketing meetings.

• ​Assess feasibility of new ideas and troubleshoot activities where formulation knowledge is essential.

• ​Support technical investigations using root-cause analysis and problem-solving techniques as required for existing and new products.

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​Establish and maintain internal and external working relationships

• ​Develop and maintain effective working relationships with R&D, Supply Chain and marketing teams, customers, and key stakeholders. ​

What You’ll Need To Succeed

A deep passion for product design and creative product development

Education/Experience

• Bachelor of Science Degree in Food Science or equivalent degree. 

• 2-5 years of experience in the food industry, preferably in product development 

Technical/Project management

• Ability to independently execute tasks and projects with low-moderate complexity.

• Ability to develop, plan, conduct, and coordinate prototype development initiatives across multiple projects/tasks. 

• Working knowledge in use of ingredients, formulation, process, and product design principles.

• Working knowledge in specification creation and approval and costing.

• Ability to analyze and interpret data with guidance on final conclusions.

• Working knowledge of experimental design, root cause analysis and problem-solving techniques

• Good understanding of Supply Chain.

Communication

• Strong verbal and written communication skills

• Ability to construct trial/lab reports and presentation, including recommendations.

• Ability to present information to both technical and non-technical audiences.