New Product Development Graduate

Overview

At Dunbia, we are passionate about creating great food, developing innovative products and finding better ways to deliver for our customers and consumers.

As a family-owned business and a leading name in the food industry, we supply high-quality meat products to some of the UK’s biggest retailers and foodservice customers. Our continued growth is built on strong relationships, operational excellence and a commitment to innovation, sustainability and creating better food naturally.

Our Brighter Futures Graduate Programme is designed to develop the next generation of talent within Dunbia, and we are looking for an ambitious and curious New Product Development Graduate to join us.

This is much more than supporting new product launches.

You’ll experience the journey from consumer and market insight through innovation, product development and factory scale-up to customer launch, giving you a real understanding of how successful food products are created and manufactured.

If you have a passion for food, love solving problems and want to see your ideas come to life on supermarket shelves, this could be the start of an exciting career with Dunbia.

With us you would receive:

- 1-to-1 coaching, dedicated mentors, and bespoke management development to help you grow professionally.

- Fast track career progression and the potential to rotate to different areas of the business, broadening your horizons and giving you the chance to explore new challenges.

- The opportunity to learn from passionate and knowledgeable people with invaluable on-the-job training.

- Investment in residential offsite training and team building to further enhance your skills, ensuring you stay ahead of the game.

Joining the company through the Graduate Programme, your role will provide you with an opportunity to understand the business, build strong relationships, participate in continuous improvement projects and set career objectives, all of which are about preparing you for a leadership role, supporting the development of your skills and knowledge and helping you gain the necessary experience to ensure that you have a successful and fulfilling career within Dunbia.

What will you be doing?

Working alongside our NPD, Culinary, Technical, Commercial and Operations teams, you’ll gain hands-on experience across the complete product development journey.

You will have the opportunity to:

- Bring ideas to life, supporting the development of new and improved products from initial concept through to customer launch.
- Explore future food trends, using consumer, market and retail insight to identify new product and innovation opportunities.
- Work alongside our Culinary team to turn ideas and customer briefs into exciting product concepts.
- Develop your understanding of ingredients, food science, product functionality and manufacturing processes.
- Manage NPD projects and critical paths, building the confidence to take increasing ownership of projects as your experience grows.
- Get hands-on in our manufacturing environment, supporting factory trials, product scale-up and first production runs.
- Work with Operations to understand how products can be designed to deliver consistently, efficiently and at the right quality.
- Develop commercial awareness by understanding product cost, yield, waste, labour and margin and how these influence development decisions.
- Participate in customer meetings, product presentations, retail visits, food events and innovation sessions.
- Build strong relationships across NPD, Technical, Operations, Commercial, Procurement and Supply Chain.
- Bring your own fresh thinking, curiosity and ideas to help challenge how we do things today.
Most importantly, you won't just observe. As your knowledge and confidence develop, we'll give you increasing responsibility and the opportunity to own projects and make a tangible impact on the business.

Requirements and Qualifications

Essential

The successful candidate will demonstrate:

- A relevant degree or equivalent qualification, ideally within Food Science, Food Technology, Product Development, Culinary Innovation, Nutrition or a related discipline.
- A genuine passion for food, products and innovation.
- An interest in food manufacturing and the UK retail and foodservice markets.
- Strong organisational and time-management skills.
- The ability to coordinate multiple priorities and projects.
- Excellent attention to detail while maintaining sight of the overall objective.
- Strong communication and presentation skills.
- Confidence working collaboratively as part of a cross-functional team.
- Strong numerical capability and developing commercial awareness.
- Competence in Microsoft Office, including Excel and PowerPoint.
- The ability to work effectively in a fast-paced, customer-led manufacturing environment.
- The right to work in the UK by the commencement of employment.
Desirable

- Understanding of basic food science and food manufacturing principles.
- Knowledge or awareness of current and emerging food and consumer trends.
- Previous experience within food manufacturing, retail, hospitality or product development through a placement, internship or employment.
- Awareness of food safety, quality management systems and relevant manufacturing standards.
- Level 2 Health & Safety and/or Level 3 Food Safety qualifications.

Applications will be reviewed as they are received. We reserve the right to close the role should suitable applicants by found in advance of the closing date.

While Dunbia value all applications, it’s policy is to not provide feedback on any applications that are unsuccessful at the shortlisting stage.

This vacancy is to start in Summer 2027.

No company sponsorship is available to overseas applicants for this position.