We’re looking for a Senior NPD Manager to join our Innovation Team in a permanent, full-time position based at our Nuneaton Snacktory. With the coming together of our two amazing brands, Eat Real and Proper to form WARP Snacks, we are driving the Better for You snacking revolution. Our innovation team are at the heart of product design, as the tastemakers, creators and gatekeepers of all the facets of product and packaging. We’re looking to offer someone the opportunity to be a thought-leader and pioneer in the snack category and develop their career within a rapidly growing business. We are looking for an experienced NPD professional with the skills and knowledge to lead a team of two across packaging and product development, as well as deliver your own end to end innovation and CI projects within the factory. The Person: Combining a robust, methodical and analytical approach to complex projects with a demonstrable passion for food, you will use your knowledge of ingredients and manufacturing processes to deliver market leading products. You will have experience of line managing others, setting challenging objectives and balancing the need for coaching and providing guidance when needed. You will have an impressive track record of driving successful NPD product and packaging innovation from ideation to launch, working collaboratively with project management, brand marketing, technical and manufacturing stakeholders. A brilliant communicator and builder by nature, you’ll take pride in taking ownership of the challenges you encounter, working collaboratively and with flexibility to find solutions to recipe and process challenges that may occur along the way, all while maintaining an enthusiastic and positive mindset. The Role: Working closely with the Innovation Director and senior level stakeholders, you will be responsible for coaching and providing guidance to an NPD Manager and Packaging Manager to deliver their end-to-end development projects. You will also lead the delivery of your own innovation projects and identify and initiate continuous improvement opportunities within Nuneaton to improve NPD processes and ways of working. You will work cross functionally with our in-house manufacturing team, marketing and technical teams as well as external suppliers and third-party manufacturers to unlock exciting and commercially viable innovation within a rapidly growing business. You’ll primarily be located at the Nuneaton manufacturing site, but we welcome a hybrid approach, with working from home 1-2 days a week. You will also be expected to do some travelling to our London headquarters and our suppliers too (travel expenses will be covered). Key Responsibilities: As well as being a line manager, this role is hands-on, owning and driving end to end product and packaging development and CI projects. - Team Leadership - line managing a team of one NPD Manager and one Packaging Manager, providing leadership, guidance and coaching - Ideation – working with Innovation Director, Brand & Commercial teams – you will use your knowledge of food trends and the latest functional ingredients, consumer behaviour and the category landscape to research and ideate new to market flavours and concepts, that align to our overall brand strategy - Development & Prototyping – utilising your strong relationships with suppliers and stakeholders, you’ll undertake benchmarking, develop detailed food briefs and manage submissions with suppliers and project teams. You’ll design the prototype recipes, setting the quality standards to ensure great taste, nutritional compliance and claims, factory feasibility and commercial viability are all built-in - Testing - you will set up shelf-life testing, analysis, data collection and interpretation, run internal and external taste panels and create summaries, reports and recommendations - Scale Up & Validation - working with suppliers and the Snacktory – you’ll plan, oversee, assess and report on trials ensuring the concept can be produced safely and consistently at the right quality standards - Project Management – driving your projects forward, building the product elements of the Gate documentation following each phase of work. You’ll work with the project management team to flag and mitigate risk to the business using critical paths, commercial insight and factory impact. - Continuous Improvement – you’ll work closely with your stakeholders at Nuneaton to identify and drive projects to continuously improve our processes and ways of working, implementing change that results in measurable improvements Requirements: - Senior management experience preferred, line management experience essential - Degree level qualification in Food Science/ Food Technology/ Food Manufacturing/ or similar at a minimum 2.1 grade or equivalent strongly preferred - Demonstratable passion for food with sensory training and broad experience in product testing - Proven experience in delivering multiple, complex projects to brief, on time and in full - Strong technical expertise in successful product design into scale up, validation and launch - Experience in packaging development, with a good understanding of materials and sustainability - Positive, proactive and relentless, with a flexible, can-do attitude to problem solving - A brilliant communicator and collaborator with experience of cross functional project delivery - Confident with the Microsoft Office suite of tools, with particular skills in Excel and Powerpoint About WARP: PROPER and Eat Real were born out of a belief that healthy snacks should taste great. In 2021, we joined forces as WARP to fire up the healthy snacking revolution. To set the bar for how better, more sustainable, snacking is done. In coming together, we supercharge our vision to take better for you snacking global. So there has never been a more exciting time to join the team. We believe in the importance of team and coming together as WARP. But we also recognise the benefit of flexible working and having some headspace away from the office. We spend a minimum of 3 days working from the office each week and 2 days working from anywhere. Our London HQ, The Snackbox, is a 5-minute walk from Euston and Warren Street, and home to 50 of our team. We’re also the proud owners of The Snacktory in Nuneaton. Here you’ll find more of our team and the Movers & Makers who keep our snacks on the shelves. Our Approach: PROPER and Eat Real is an equal opportunities employer and we do not discriminate on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, marital or civil partner status, pregnancy or maternity, gender reassignment, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, disability or age. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to accommodate you to participate fully in the recruitment or interview process.