Culinary R&D Chef /

Culinary Innovation Lead Location:

Jersey City, NJ Job Type:

Full-Time Experience Required:

5-7+ years

Industry:

Food Manufacturing / Food Production /

Culinary R&D Job Summary :

- Rajbhog Foods is seeking an experienced Culinary R&D Chef / Culinary Innovation Lead to support new product development, recipe commercialization for high-volume food production. This role is ideal for a hands-on culinary professional who understands scratch cooking, customer tastings, and scaling recipes from kitchen concept to full production, food manufacturing, production trials. Key Responsibilities Develop and improve flavorful, high-quality recipes for commercial food production. Product development from concept, kitchen trials, factory trials, and full production rollout. Customer tastings, sampling sessions, and product presentations while directly interacting with clients to understand their needs, collect feedback, and improve product quality. Create prototypes, test recipes, calculate yields, and support product costing. Support recipe development, label review, shelf-life testing, and technical approval. Improve flavor, quality, consistency, and presentation across product lines. Lead internal tastings, ingredient testing, and product validation. Convert culinary ideas into clear SOPs, recipe cards, prep instructions, and production standards. Work closely with Operations and spend time on the production floor to ensure successful execution. Support first production runs and troubleshoot production challenges in real time. Drive continuous improvement in recipes, workflows, production processes, and product consistency. Find root causes of issues and create practical solutions. Collect and apply feedback from customers, Sales, Operations, and QA to improve products. Ensure products are not only compliant, but also flavorful, consistent, scalable, and repeatable. Partner with Sales to support customer presentations, product showcases, and new business opportunities. Help organize culinary systems, production flow, kitchen organization, and event execution processes. Create and maintain SOPs, prep systems, production timelines, packing procedures, and quality control standards. Deliver high-quality and visually appealing food presentations for customers and business development. Translate culinary innovation into customer-ready products, presentations, and product stories. Work closely with FSQA, Procurement, Supply Chain, and Production to ensure product feasibility and consistency. Support ingredient sourcing, substitutions, cost control, and production scalability. Ensure smooth hand off from R&D to Operations across company locations.

Required Experience & Qualifications :

- Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in Culinary Arts, Food Science, Nutrition, or a related field. 5+ years of experience in culinary R&D, product development, food manufacturing, or high-volume food production. Strong experience with scratch cooking and recipe commercialization. Proven ability to take products from concept to full-scale production. Experience developing and scaling recipes for high-volume production environments. Strong understanding of flavor development, ingredients, food quality, and production feasibility. Ability to work in both a creative kitchen environment and a fast-paced production floor setting. Experience supporting customer tastings, presentations, or product showcases. Strong problem-solving skills with a focus on root cause analysis and continuous improvement. Ability to work with cross-functional teams including Operations, QA, Procurement, Sales, and Production. Strong knowledge of food production, commercialization, and operational execution. Ability to travel occasionally, as needed, to visit customers, factories, and trade shows.

Preferred Qualifications :

- Experience in CPG, food manufacturing, frozen foods, prepared meals, or large-scale food service. Experience working in a

USDA/FDA

food production environment is a plus. Experience with recipe documentation, SOPs, batch sheets, yields, and production trials.

Ideal Candidate Traits:

- Creative but highly organized. Calm under pressure. Detail-oriented and process-focused. Strong sense of urgency. Professional and polished. Solutions-focused and hands-on. Strong team player and mentor. Passionate about great food, product quality, and customer experience. Why Join Rajbhog Foods? Join a growing food manufacturing company where your culinary ideas can become real products in the market. This role gives you the opportunity to work hands-on with product innovation, production teams, and customer-facing product development.

To Apply:

- Please send your resume to: jigneshparmar@rajbhog.com

Pay:

$95,000.00 - $105,000.00 per year

Benefits:

401(k) Dental insurance Employee discount Health insurance Paid time off Vision insurance Application Question(s): Have you developed a recipe from concept/kitchen trial to full production rollout? Do you have experience with high-volume food production or frozen/prepared foods manufacturing? Are you comfortable leading customer tastings, sampling sessions, and product presentations while directly interacting with clients? How many years of experience do you have in Culinary R&D, product development, recipe development, food manufacturing, or high-volume food production? Please briefly describe your most relevant experience.

Work Location:

In person