Applications Manager - Food Ingredients

Location: North Carolina (On-site)

Employment Type: Full-Time | Permanent

About the Opportunity

We are partnering with an established international food ingredient manufacturer seeking an experienced Applications Manager to join its growing technical team in North Carolina.

This is an exciting opportunity for a technically strong food science professional to lead applications development, support customer innovation, and contribute to the continued growth of the business across North and South America.

The successful candidate will work closely with commercial, R&D, and technical teams to develop innovative ingredient solutions, troubleshoot formulation challenges, and provide technical expertise to customers across a variety of food and beverage categories.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead technical applications projects across food and beverage categories, including beverages, bakery, confectionery, dairy, and snacks.

• Work closely with commercial and technical teams to support customer formulation requirements, ingredient functionality, product stability, and troubleshooting.

• Oversee laboratory trials, product testing, validation, and applications development.

• Develop customer-specific ingredient solutions, ensuring technical feasibility and commercial relevance.

• Deliver technical presentations, product demonstrations, customer training sessions, and workshops.

• Support new product introductions and identify opportunities to expand ingredient applications into additional food and beverage categories.

• Prepare technical guidelines, applications reports, project documentation, and training materials.

• Collaborate with international technical teams to share knowledge, expertise, and best practices.

• Support the training and development of applications and commercial team members.

• Ensure laboratory activities comply with GMP, food safety, and relevant quality standards.

• Represent the business at industry events, customer meetings, and trade shows.

• Contribute to the development of the wider technical team and support future leadership initiatives.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Food Science or a closely related discipline.

• Minimum 5-7 years of relevant experience within the food or food ingredient industry.

• Strong hands-on experience in food product development, formulation, and technical applications.

• Understanding of food ingredient functionality, processing methods, analytical testing, and product stability.

• Proven ability to troubleshoot formulation challenges and deliver commercially relevant technical solutions.

• Experience supporting customer-facing technical projects and collaborating with commercial teams.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to present complex technical information clearly.

• Strong project management, organisational, and problem-solving capabilities.

• Willingness to travel for customer meetings, industry events, and technical collaboration as required.

Preferred Qualifications

• Previous experience in an Applications Manager, Senior Food Scientist, Technical Applications, or Product Development position.

• Experience working with functional ingredients, specialty ingredients, or ingredient systems used in food and beverage manufacturing.

• Knowledge of formulation challenges relating to product appearance, stability, ingredient interactions, and processing conditions.

• Background in beverages, bakery, confectionery, dairy, or related food categories.

• Previous leadership or mentoring experience, or demonstrated potential to develop and manage technical teams.

• Familiarity with GMP, SQF, and food safety standards.

Why Consider This Opportunity?

This position offers the opportunity to take ownership of technical applications projects within a well-established ingredient manufacturing business.

You will have direct involvement in customer innovation, new product development, and commercial growth while building relationships with technical specialists across international markets.

The position is particularly suited to an experienced food scientist or applications professional looking to develop their technical leadership responsibilities and contribute to a growing organisation.

Interested?

If you have a strong background in food applications, ingredient functionality, or product development and are interested in exploring a new opportunity within the food ingredient industry, we would welcome a confidential conversation.

Location: North Carolina - On-site position.