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Application Lead - Savory (Food Ingredients R&D)

Date:  8 May 2026

Country:  Singapore

Location: 

Biopolis, SG

Function:  Innovation, Quality & Food Safety

About Us

As a leading provider of high-quality food and beverage ingredients, we work with farming communities across the globe to grow, source and produce ingredients that are good for consumers, farmers, and the world around us.  We supply household food brands and manufacturers worldwide with cocoa, coffee, dairy, nuts and spices ingredients which are often grown on our own farms and estates and sourced from hundreds of thousands of farmers across ~50 countries. Along with our diverse manufacturing and innovation capabilities, this means we can provide ingredients for a range of products, from a plant-based latte mix to an almond based snack bar or a dairy-free ice cream.  Making a positive impact on people and planet is a core component of our Purpose, to be the change for good food and a healthy future. With a deep-rooted presence in the countries where our ingredients are grown, we are closer to farmers, enabling better quality, and more reliable, traceable, and transparent supply. And whoever we’re with, whatever we’re doing, we always make it real. 

Food & Beverage Solutions

We have launched a new platform called Food and Beverage solutions, part of our ingredients and solutions reporting unit. This platform consolidates our current category solutions capabilities and innovation infrastructure. We support customers in developing new consumer concepts and application solutions at our four customer solution centers in Amsterdam, Bangalore, Chicago, and Singapore.  Food and Beverage solutions leverages the strengths of our five product platforms, including their global and sustainable supply chain capabilities, a complementary portfolio of high-quality food and ingredients, and extensive ingredient expertise. This enables us to address a diverse range of customer requirements in the rapidly evolving Food and Beverage industry. Built on deep consumer, category, and application understanding, we are enhancing our application and R&D capabilities to provide an end-to-end integrated customer experience. This opens up more on-trend and inspired product ideation opportunities. Together, we can co-create product innovations that delight consumers and make your ambitions a reality.  

Job Description

Job Title: Application Lead – Savoury

Location: Singapore

Function: Innovation

Reporting manager: Customer Solutions Centre (CSC) Head Singapore/APAC

Position Overview

The Savoury Lead is responsible for defining and driving the Savoury & Culinary application strategy within CSC Singapore, overseeing end-to-end product development, customer solutioning, and technical capability building. This role extends beyond execution to provide technical leadership across all savoury dry, wet, and emulsified systems, ensuring scalable, high-impact solutions across QSR, Foodservice, and B2B segments.

Key Responsibilities

1. Product Development & Technical Leadership

Define formulation strategies across categories and applications
Ensure integration of ingredient functionality (e.g. flavours, extracts, hydrocolloids, starches) into robust formulations
Guide development of multi-functional systems adaptable across applications
Drive standardization and development of base formulations and modular systems
Drives translation of concepts across formats (e.g. snack seasoning to meat systems, wet to dry platforms)

2. Sensory & Reverse Engineering Excellence

Establish structured sensory frameworks and evaluation protocols
Lead product benchmarking and reverse engineering into scalable formats
Translate sensory gaps into formulation strategies and system improvements
Build sensory guidance across team to ensure consistent product delivery

3. Customer Solutioning & Business Impact

Lead technical engagement with key customers across QSR, Foodservice, and B2B
Translate customer briefs, issues, and challenges into innovation opportunities
Drive co-creation sessions, prototypes, and demonstrations
Partner with commercial teams to support customer conversion and growth

4. Team Leadership & Capability Building

Manage and develop a team of 2–3 Solution Specialists
Provide technical mentorship and coaching on product design and scale-up
Ensure adherence to development SOPs, documentation, and best practices
Align and guide senior specialists and category managers under broader savoury agenda

5. Scale-Up & Manufacturing Integration

Oversee translation from lab to pilot and plant scale
Ensure formulations meet processing, cost, and manufacturability requirements
Guide troubleshooting of scale-up challenges across internal and external manufacturing
Drive alignment between R&D, Quality, Regulatory, Operations, and supply teams

6. Ingredient & System Strategy

Define and optimize ingredient selection for performance and scalability
Develop platform systems for reuse across multiple applications
Evaluate supplier capabilities and ingredient alternatives
Drive standardization of blends and systems for efficiency

7. Innovation & Knowledge Management

Lead development of application knowledge and formulation databases
Capture learnings from projects to accelerate future development
Identify trends and translate into innovation pipeline
Support regional projects and cross-market initiatives

8. Quality, Compliance & Governance

Ensure all developments meet regulatory, food safety, and customer requirements
Maintain documentation of formulations, specifications, and test results
Ensure compliance with internal SOPs and development processes

Requirements

Experience & Qualifications

Minimum Degree in Food Science, Food Technology or related field
15+ years experience in savoury and culinary product development
Strong experience in culinary premixes, solutions, sauces, marinades, seasonings, etc.
Experience across QSR, Foodservice, and B2B applications
Proven leadership of technical teams

Technical Skills

Deep understanding of ingredient functionality across systems
Expertise in powders, emulsions, and liquid applications
Strong capability in reverse engineering and sensory-led development
Experience in scale-up and commercialization

Leadership & Functional Skills

Strong leadership and stakeholder management capability
Ability to operate in fast-paced, multi-project environments
Strong customer-facing and communication skills
Ability to translate technical outcomes into business value

Other Requirements

Willingness to travel (20–25%)
Able to adapt to fast paced working environment and new systems
Reliable, proactive, and highly initiative

ofi is an equal opportunity employer and values diversity. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to racial or ethnic origin, color, age, religion or belief, sex, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. 

Applicants are requested to complete all required steps in the application process including providing a resume/CV in order to be considered for open roles.