Research & Development Chef (Manager)

Position Overview

The Research & Development Manager is a hands-on culinary developer and team lead who runs day-to-day development, testing, and commercialization across Orbital Kitchens' 20+ brands. The Manager delivers products that taste great, hit margin targets, and run consistently at volume. The role is built to grow into Director of R&D as the function scales.

Key Responsibilities

- Product Development & Testing: Lead hands-on development of menu items, recipes, ingredients, and processes from concept through approval, including recipe testing, food costing, yield and shelf-life testing, stabilization, large-batch validation, and tastings.
- Pipeline & Project Management: Run concurrent R&D projects with clear priorities, timelines, testing requirements, and success criteria. Keep the pipeline moving, flag risks early, and help shape pipeline priorities.
- Ideation & Insights: Use food trends, competitor menus, sales data, and customer feedback to pitch new products and menu improvements.
- Team Leadership: Lead, train, and develop the R&D kitchen team. Set daily priorities and build a culture of creativity, disciplined experimentation, and clean documentation.
- Scaling & Operational Feasibility: Turn concepts into repeatable, production-ready products for a high-volume, multi-brand operation. Test in real production conditions and resolve labor, equipment, storage, capacity, workflow, and food safety issues before launch.
- Cost & Profitability: Build accurate costing for every product and work with Procurement, Supply Chain, and Finance to hit food cost, yield, waste, and margin targets.
- Documentation & Launch: Write complete recipes, specs, yields, build sheets, and SOPs for every approved product. Execute launches with Operations, Production, Training, and Marketing, including kitchen training and post-launch troubleshooting.
- Performance & Continuous Improvement: Track product and launch KPIs, including sales, margin, quality, and on-time launches, and turn results and operational feedback into product and process improvements.

Knowledge, Skills & Experience

- 3+ years in culinary R&D, product development, or senior culinary roles, including taking products from concept to launch.
- Experience leading small teams or projects, with the drive to grow into a Director role.
- Strong culinary foundation and working knowledge of food science, recipe development, scaling, shelf life, yields, and food costing.
- High-volume, multi-unit, commissary, or manufacturing experience is strongly preferred.
- Business sense to balance culinary quality with feasibility, cost, and margin.
- Strong project-management, documentation, and communication skills.
- Working knowledge of food safety, sanitation, QA, and HACCP, plus experience writing or supporting SOPs.
- Culinary or food science education and ServSafe certification preferred; PCQI or SQF a plus.