New Product Development Technologist
Avara Foods · Moxley, Walsall
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Why this role matters
How close this job is to real sourcing and menu decisions.
Avara is one of the UK's largest poultry businesses, controlling the full chain from farm to factory to supermarket shelf, which means product decisions made here ripple across hundreds of farms and into the supply chains behind supermarket and food service shelves. This role sits inside the New Product Development team shaping what chicken and turkey products get launched, their specifications, and how they're costed and tested before reaching retail and food service customers, not the welfare standards for the birds themselves, but the commercial machinery that decides what gets made and sold at scale. For someone building toward more direct influence over sourcing standards, this is a credible route in: it builds fluency in NPD systems, retailer specification processes, and cross-functional work with technical and procurement teams inside a company that owns its entire poultry supply chain, which is exactly the kind of insider knowledge needed to later push for change in supplier standards from a seat with more direct say over what gets specified and sourced.
Where this role can take you
What this job teaches you, and the jobs it can lead to.
What you'd build
- NPD process management
- Retailer NPD systems experience
- Product costing and launch coordination
- Cross-functional stakeholder management
- Production trial and shelf-life testing exposure
Where it can lead
- New Product Development Manager
- Technical Manager
- Category Manager
These roles typically hold greater authority over product specifications and supplier requirements, including the chance to influence welfare-related criteria written into poultry and meat sourcing specifications.
About the role
Avara Foods, a vertically integrated UK poultry business supplying chicken and turkey to major supermarkets and restaurants, is hiring a New Product Development Technologist to support the NPD Development Product Manager in delivering NPD initiatives for a business unit area. The role reports to the New Product Development Manager and works closely with Technical, Operations, Commercial, Planning & Procurement teams to identify requirements and plan schedules of work for product delivery. It is predominantly office based but requires factory floor exposure (refrigerated, noisy environment), standard hours of Monday to Friday 08:30-17:00, weekly travel to suppliers, customers and Avara manufacturing sites, and occasional weekend working for organoleptic assessments. Key responsibilities include researching markets and technologies to develop new product concepts for Retail & Food Service, organising benchmarking sessions, managing and developing product concepts with suppliers against customer briefs, preparing product costings to ensure profitable launches, updating the internal NPD system, supporting customer presentations, managing NPD meetings with cross-functional teams, ensuring development activity follows NPD Procedures and Processes, organising and executing production trials including shelf-life assessments, organoleptic testing, cooking instruction verification and nutritional sample analysis, updating product costing based on trial data, liaising with site-based Operations and Technical teams on product launch planning, and managing launches to ensure compliance with specification and quality parameters. Essential requirements: experience developing and launching new products with retail and/or food service customers; experience in product development within an FMCG environment; experience managing critical paths and coordinating internal departments for successful launches; knowledge of the functional characteristics of food ingredients; thorough understanding of the product development process from concept to launch with experience of adherence to Retailers' NPD systems; ability to work under own initiative; computer literacy; a methodical approach able to ascertain clear requirements from stakeholders; high accuracy and attention to detail; and a full UK driving licence. Desirable requirements: a recognised qualification in Food Sciences or related subject areas; experience of product development within a Meat/Poultry environment; and knowledge of food labelling and ingredient regulatory requirements. The role is permanent with a competitive salary depending on experience, and benefits include 31 days holiday, 6% pension, private medical insurance, life insurance, and lifestyle benefits including wellbeing resources.
This is an extract. Read the full advert on the employer's site.
Key terms to include in your CV and cover letter
What this employer is asking for, in their words. Applications are often screened by software looking for exact phrases, so if these describe your experience, use their wording.
- new product development
- product costing
- FMCG product development
- critical path management
- cross-functional coordination
- production trials
- shelf-life assessment
- organoleptic testing
- nutritional sample analysis
- product specification compliance
- retailer NPD systems
- food ingredient functionality
- food labelling regulations
- stakeholder requirement gathering
- attention to detail
How to position yourself
The language that works with hiring managers for this kind of job.
Position your interest in terms of product innovation, launch efficiency and retailer compliance - speak to how rigorous NPD processes reduce commercial risk and protect margins on new launches. Highlighting any experience with FMCG product development critical paths, specification adherence or retailer NPD systems will resonate strongly here; a food science qualification or poultry/meat sector experience, while only desirable, will strengthen your case.
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