Development Chef

About McCain. At McCain, we're feeding the world: from French fries to Smiles, we contribute to the important role food plays in people's lives. That's why we're dedicated to ensuring our core values - Family, Authentic, Trusted, and Quality - shine through every day. As a privately owned family company with over 60 years of experience, a presence in more than 160 countries, and a global team of 22,000 people, our values and culture are at the heart of everything we do. We believe that we can work together, along with our business and community partners, to bring sustainable growth and positive change today, tomorrow, and for generations to come. Join us and see how you can MAKE IT at McCain!

Why join the McCain family:

• Your Life - we're here to help you fulfil your potential, flourish, and thrive in work and life.
• Your Success - work alongside passionate individuals who are committed to supporting your career ambitions, drive, and success.
• Your Impact - we want you to make a meaningful, lasting impact for you, for your colleagues, and for the business.

About the role. The Development Chef is at the heart of delivering McCain's culinary vision, bringing food innovation to life through strong customer partnerships and chef-to-chef collaboration. More than product development, this role is about inspiring customers, understanding their operational needs, and creating commercially successful, scalable menu solutions that make a real impact. Combining hands-on culinary expertise with strategic customer engagement, the Development Chef builds trusted relationships, influences menu decisions, and showcases McCain as the value-adding supplier of choice. The result? Stronger partnerships, increased customer loyalty, and shared growth across the regional foodservice market.

Accountabilities:

• Build strong partnerships with key customers and prospects, delivering proactive culinary support that brings McCain's foodservice strategy to life.
• Lead impactful chef-to-chef engagement through customer visits, cook-ups, menu trials, and presentations that inspire innovation and strengthen relationships.
• Drive customer retention, win-back, and growth opportunities by providing hands-on culinary expertise, technical guidance, and tailored operational support.
• Create and maintain high-quality technical documentation, including specifications, SOPs, and trial reports, ensuring consistency and excellence across projects.
• Stay ahead of foodservice and consumer trends by attending industry events, benchmarking competitors, and championing continuous improvement initiatives.
• Turn customer insights into actionable recommendations that support product optimisation, operational improvements, and future innovation pipelines.
• Help shape compelling commercial stories through product benchmarking, performance testing, and competitive analysis that showcase McCain's added value.

Qualifications:

• Proven expertise in product formulation and recipe development, particularly within frozen potato-based products.
• Strong understanding of ingredient functionality, including potatoes, oils, stabilisers, anti-caking agents, and functional additives.
• In-depth knowledge of appetite-style product systems, including doughs, batters, coatings, and breadings.
• Advanced understanding of food safety and quality systems, including HACCP and global regulatory standards such as FDA and EFSA.
• Solid knowledge of compliance requirements, including HFSS regulations and allergen management.
• Experience optimising manufacturing processes across freezing, packaging, storage, and distribution.
• Strong technical capability in industrial cooking methods, including blanching, frying, and freezing.
• Hands-on experience with operator cooking equipment such as Rational ovens, impingement ovens, and frying systems.
• Practical knowledge of potato processing equipment, including peelers, slicers, fryers, freezing systems, and refrigeration technology.

Customer & Engagement Capability:

• Confident customer-facing culinary professional with the ability to build credibility in chef-to-chef environments.
• Skilled at understanding customer kitchen operations, equipment, and constraints, translating them into practical menu and product solutions.
• Experienced in delivering engaging culinary demonstrations, cook-ups, and technical presentations that influence menu and purchasing decisions.
• Commercially minded, with the ability to connect culinary and technical expertise to key business drivers such as yield, margin, labour efficiency, and menu profitability.

Location. This role is a homebased role with extensive travel, but our head office (Customer Experience Centre) is on the outskirts of Scarborough - 1.5 hours away from Leeds City Centre, and about an hour from York. We have lots of colleagues who travel to and from our Experience Centre and because hybrid really does mean hybrid at McCain, they get the opportunity to collaborate with their colleagues when they're in the office, and balance that with working from home to ensure they get a good life-work balance.

The benefits of working for McCain. For working hard, you'll also get a great salary and some pretty good benefits including:

• A generous Car Allowance
• An achievable yearly bonus based on personal performance.
• An excellent pension where we will pay double what you do, up to a maximum of 12% of your pay
• Flexible holidays - where you can buy & sell up to 5 days holiday per year
• Optional health cash plan
• Cycle to work scheme
• 'Chips In' Volunteering Day Off - to make a positive impact to the competitiveness, resilience, and long-term development of McCain communities across the globe
• And of course, being part of a Global business there are great opportunities to shine/thrive should you wish to relocate in the future.

We are McCain: this statement is about our power collectively and our importance individually - your impact is a significant part of the business. Our winning culture focuses on authenticity and trust so we can always bring out the best in our people. Here, you have the opportunity to learn, grow, and thrive while being yourself. Join our team to see why we're better together.