JOB TITLE: HUL Foods Lead Product Development Specialist, India

LOCATION: Unilever R&D Bangalore, India

ABOUT UNILEVER

With 3.4 billion people in over 190 countries using our products every day, Unilever is a business that makes a real impact on the world. Work on brands that are loved and improve the lives of our consumers and the communities around us. We are driven by our purpose: to make sustainable living commonplace, and it is our belief that doing business the right way drives superior performance. At the heart of what we do is our people – we believe that when our people work with purpose, we will create a better business and a better world.

At Unilever, your career will be a unique journey, grounded in our inclusive, collaborative, and flexible working environment. We don’t believe in the ‘one size fits all’ approach and instead we will equip you with the tools you need to shape your own future.

BUSINESS CONTEXT AND MAIN CHALLENGES OF THE ROLE:

Prospective candidates need to work on innovation, renovation and value engineering projects as per the brief agreed with the business involving Product & Process Development, Regulatory compliance and Technology transfer.

Key role will be Planning and execution of experiments where one needs to develop experimental plan and prototypes of new products as per discussions with Technical Project Leaders (TPLs). Conduct relevant experiments at either lab-scale or pilot-scale (Individual responsibility). Data Analysis and drawing inferences for future course of action will be key enabler on this role. Conducting a thorough analysis of the data and planning of subsequent experimentations on the inferences drawn from the data analysis will be a very important skill for this role.

ROLE ALSO INVOLVES BELOW RESPONSIBILITIES:

Consumer understanding: understanding consumer preference /insights, cooking habits / techniques through consumer research and translate the same into key attributes of new products being developed.

Claims & Demo generation & substantiation: help developing competitive claims and demo along with substantiation to defend those claims.

Process development: establishing appropriate technology for manufacturing a product to specification at lab-scale and pilot-scale

Shelf-life stability: conduct shelf-life studies to establish shelf-life of new products and/or intervene through formulation/recipes to enhance shelf-life

Product characterization: use appropriate measurement techniques (either existing or develop new techniques) to characterize key attributes of the product

Process scale-up: establish technology developed at pilot-scale in factories to enable commercial production; troubleshooting at factory-scale whenever required

Competitor Tracking: keeping track of new launches by competitors in the market and preparing detailed reports on a quarterly basis.

Quality Monitoring: Monitoring of in market delivered quality of products as well as helping factories/suppliers on quality related matters

Critical Success Factors of the Job:

Key Competencies & Skills:

Having the right attitude is crucial as it drives accountability, responsibility, and a growth mindset, which are essential for success in any role

Collaboration and Networking

Project management experience

Hold on Technical Specification

Creative thinking

Technical reporting skills

Exposure to Ecosystem partnership

Supplier/vendor development experience

Regulatory Knowledge

Quality management

Competency in English communication

RELEVANT EXPERIENCE:

M. Sc. / B.Tech Food Tech/Science

Minimum 4-5 years of experience in Foods/Beverages R&D background preferred. Candidates with QA/QC background at relevant industries with creative bend of mind can also apply.

Any other critical personal characteristics

Occasional 1 to 5 nights travel

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity & Inclusion 

Unilever embraces diversity and encourages applicants from all walks of life! This means giving full and fair consideration to all applicants and continuing development of all employees regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity.