Development Chef

Development Chef

Location: Surrey
Salary: £40,000 to £45,000
Hours: Monday to Friday

Found Food & Drink is partnering with a highly creative food innovation business to appoint an experienced Development Chef.

This is an opportunity for someone with a strong culinary background to move into a role combining food creativity, commercial development and product scale up.

We are particularly interested in chefs who have trained or worked within Michelin starred restaurants, AA Rosette kitchens, luxury hotels, premium contract catering or other high quality culinary environments.

Reporting to the Culinary Lead, you will take ownership of development projects from initial brief through to commercial launch.

The business works with a network of specialist co-manufacturing partners, so a key part of the role will be ensuring products can move successfully from the development kitchen into commercial production.

The role will include:

Developing creative and commercially viable food concepts.

Creating, testing, refining and documenting recipes.

Preparing high quality samples for customer presentations and product reviews.

Working closely with customers, internal teams and co-manufacturing partners.

Supporting factory trials and resolving product or process challenges during scale up.

Adapting recipes to suit different manufacturing capabilities without compromising the original concept.

Researching ingredients, cuisines, formats and food trends.

Managing multiple projects, development records and deadlines.

Maintaining high standards within the development kitchen.

We are looking for someone with excellent culinary foundations, strong food knowledge and the confidence to develop recipes independently.

You should understand flavour, texture, balance, presentation, ingredient functionality and how products may need to change when moving into larger scale production.

Previous experience as a Development Chef, NPD Chef, Innovation Chef or Product Development Chef would be highly relevant. Experience working with external manufacturers or co-manufacturing partners would be particularly valuable.

You will be creative, commercially aware, organised and comfortable taking ownership of projects. You will also need to communicate confidently with customers, colleagues and manufacturing partners.

This is a varied role within an ambitious food innovation business, offering genuine ownership and the opportunity to see your ideas progress from early concept through to successful commercial production.

To learn more, apply directly or contact the Found Food & Drink team for a confidential conversation.