Product Development Manager Candidate
Human Resources, R&D/Food Science
Refrigerated Foods
No - Relocation
, California
Bachelors
408323
SEEKING A ROLE AS: Product Development Leadership in the food processing / prepared foods sector.
IN LOCATION: Currently living in California. Willing to relocate: Yes. Worksite preference: onsite/hybrid/remote open.
SKILLS & ACHIEVEMENTS: Product development and R&D leader with 10+ years of experience across chilled and frozen prepared foods, known for building repeatable NPD systems that help teams launch faster while maintaining quality, compliance, and commercial readiness. Brings hands-on innovation expertise plus the operational rigor to scale development without losing visibility.
• 10+ years in food processing product development / R&D (chilled & frozen prepared foods segment)
• Category skills: new product development; R&D process design & formalization; stage-gate/project management; shelf life & stability analysis; ingredient interaction & applied food science; nutritionally tailored meal development; cost engineering & margin optimization; culinary-to-commercial translation
• Managed teams: built, led, and mentored a team of 3 R&D technologists
• Revenue/volume impact: managed end-to-end NPD across 100+ SKUs annually, delivering 900+ meals in 2023 and 1,300+ in 2024 across 41+ retail and foodservice customer programs
• Built scalable development infrastructure: designed a company-wide NPD workflow
• Improved launch speed: reduced new-customer launch time from 180 to 45 days via a pre-developed product catalog and re-qualification system
• Cost savings: drove $114K+ in annualized cost savings through formula optimization and a 20% reduction in ingredient onboarding time via a cross-functional Kaizen event
EDUCATION: B.S. Food Science & Technology
COMPENSATION: Base salary expectation likely in the $160,000 + range plus incentives, aligned to cost of living and expanded R&D/product development leadership responsibilities.
If you are interested in speaking with this product development leader who:
– Is looking to lead a product development & R&D team
– Is looking to help you by building reliable NPD workflows, accelerating customer launches, and improving launch throughput while protecting compliance and quality
– Is capable of delivering measurable outcomes across SKU growth, meal volume, and cost/margin optimization, then …
send a job description to robn@kinsa.com referring to this candidate so Rob Navarro can engage this candidate about the position.
Contact:
Rob Navarro
RobN@kinsa.com
Worksite Preference:Open
Employment Preference:Permanent
"*" indicates required fields