Food Technologist

This is an opportunity for a detail-focused and technically curious Food Technologist to join a knowledgeable, highly valued team at the heart of apetito’s New Product Development function. In this role, you will help turn product and ingredient information into clear, accurate and legally compliant data that supports safe, high-quality meals for people who rely on our food every day. Working within the Ingredients Function, you would be one of three Food Technologists reporting to the Food Technology Supervisor. The team provides the technical expertise that underpins specifications, artwork, customer queries, new product launches and changes in food legislation.

You will play a key role in ensuring raw materials and finished products meet legislative, customer and apetito requirements, helping to protect product integrity from concept through to launch and beyond. This is a role for someone who enjoys precision, problem solving and communication. You will work closely with suppliers, development colleagues and internal stakeholders to gather, interpret, approve and share product information, making sure the right technical detail is available to the right people at the right time. Alongside your development colleagues, you will support the delivery of new and improved products, bringing together technical accuracy, legislative awareness and practical delivery to help projects move forward to agreed deadlines. You will become a trusted source of product knowledge for colleagues in areas such as dietetics, marketing and sales, while being supported to keep your own food legislation knowledge current so you can help implement changes with confidence. This role is based at our UK Head Office in Trowbridge Wiltshire.

apetito is the UK’s leading food supplier to the health and social care sectors serving more than 1,300 care homes, health care and education settings. Our meals are expertly crafted by our dieticians and chefs, and then frozen to lock in the goodness. Wiltshire Farm Foods, our sister company, is the UK’s largest ready meal supplier cooking and delivering over 330 different delicious frozen ready meals across the UK.

Responsibilities

• Manage and prioritise a busy, varied workload across specifications, product and material queries, artwork checks, legislative updates, product changes and project deadlines.
• Work with suppliers to prepare and maintain accurate raw material specifications for materials used on site.
• Prepare apetito finished product specifications and assess product information for legislative, customer and apetito compliance before sharing with business stakeholders.
• Gather, interpret and approve supplier, recipe and product data, ensuring information is accurate, complete and available to the right people at the right time.
• Respond to product and material queries from internal stakeholders and customers, providing clear, accurate and timely technical information.
• Check artwork and associated product information for accuracy, consistency and compliance.
• Keep internal systems for products, recipes and specifications accurate and up to date.
• Support development colleagues in the technical setup of new and improved products, helping projects progress to agreed launch deadlines.
• Drive continuous improvement.
• Contribute to Product, Systems and Service innovation to keep apetito at the cutting edge of food preparation, delivery and service.
• Keeping up to date with, and implementing key legislative changes.

About you

Essential

• You will have a degree in Food Science or related discipline or proven previous experience in a similar role.
• Competent user of Microsoft Office Software including Word, Excel, Outlook and SharePoint.
• Comfortable and capable of working on multiple projects at one time.
• Up to date knowledge and understanding of the implementation of Food Legislation for delivery to the end consumer.
• Proficient in checking food artwork labels for compliance with UK and EU food labelling laws.
• Previous experience preparing Food Specifications & labels.
• Previous experience checking raw material specifications from suppliers for accuracy, legislative compliance and adherence to business policies.
• Numerical competency to support recipe calculations.
• Comfortable working with multiple data sources.

Desirable

• Previous experience in Food Manufacturing.
• Previous experience with raw material specification checks across a variety of food groups.

Personal Qualities

• Detail focussed with a structured approach to task completion.
• Self-motivated and able to own and manage workload with minimal supervision.
• Able to work within a team and communicate with internal and external stakeholders at all levels in a professional manner, using both oral and written forms of communication.
• Analytical thinker with ability to translate facts into usable information to support a position on a task in the workplace.

Company Benefits

• Competitive salary – accredited Living Wage employer.
• 25 days holiday per year, plus bank holidays.
• Option to purchase up to 5 additional days holiday per year.
• Discretionary annual bonus scheme.
• Pension scheme - employer matched contributions up to 4%.
• Life assurance scheme worth at least 1x annual salary.
• Subsidised canteen.
• Free parking.
• Free turkey or voucher at Christmas.
• apetito perks scheme including salary sacrifice options and retail discounts.

Our Values

As a family-owned business, we take great pride in being a company that makes a real difference and is dedicated to creating outstanding meals to be proud of. We develop a range of products designed to enhance health and well-being for all our customers. We are driven by a passion for service and dedicated to feeding some of the UK’s most vulnerable people. We proudly support British food and farming, focusing on using the best ethical and sustainable produce in alignment with our goal to reach Net Zero by 2040. Our ethical standards are recognised by the ETI and we are an accredited Living Wage employer. We embrace inclusion, empowering individuals from diverse backgrounds. Our commitment to making a real difference extends to customers, communities, and staff and we're on a mission to build an inclusive workplace where everyone reaches their full potential.