Food Technologist in Surrey

Location: Gatwick area

Duration: Permanent

Job status: Hybrid: 3 days a week in office, 2 days WFH

Working hours: 37.5 h per week/ Monday - Friday, 9am - 5.30pm

Who you'll be working for: A multinational global dairy producer.

What you'll be doing:

• Support the Technical Account Manager (TAM) in ensuring customers' needs and expectations are met, building strong relationships, providing excellent customer service, and driving the customers' technical agenda to improve performance.
• Provide technical support to other functions within the company to retain current business and gain new business, ensuring food safety & quality is not compromised.
• Responsible for the day-to-day management of the allocated customer technical accounts.
• Manage Own Label (OL) NPD from agreed listing to launch & post-launch.
• Monitor the quality of the products ensuring they meet the specifications and QAS at all times.
• Manage customers' technical requirements: ensure updates & changes are tracked, interpreted, summarised, and passed on to TAM for implementation.
• Build strong and proactive relationships with customers; meeting expectations, requirements, requests, and tasks by the deadlines set.
• Complete technical customers' specifications with all the relevant attachments required, ensuring they are up-to-date at all times.
• Complete & send all documents/reports required by customers (QAS, KPIs, CoC, CoA, 3rd party certificates & reports, panels, scorecards, allergens questionnaires, supplier questionnaires).
• Organise customers' audits & visits as per plan, attend (physically or remotely), and close the reports on time, with the support of the TAM if required.
• Prepare and attend (physically or remotely) any routine customer meetings, follow up on the agreed actions until closed off.
• Support TAM / Customer Technical Lead (CTL) - Head of Group technical projects & customer experience (HGC) for any tasks as and when required.
• Build strong & proactive relationships with company factories & divisions, co-manufacturers, and depots ensuring the customer needs & expectations are met.
• Manage branded NPD information and documentation: complete Internal specifications, NPD check-list, PIF, rework documentation.
• Check and comment on artworks and assets, to ensure they are legal in the UK and in line with specifications.
• Attend the NPD project meetings and ensure the products comply with food quality, safety, and legal expectations.
• For allocated customer technical accounts, manage customer complaints: log, investigate, respond to the customer, assign costs and responsibilities, close off in a timely manner.
• Support the TAMs / CTLs HGC (where applicable) for product withdrawals & recalls, as and when required.
• Hold and release products from depot as and when required.
• Support the TAM with issues raised by depots (temperatures, wrong SKUs, labelling) for OL and brands allocated as and when required.
• Manage samples.
• Complete organoleptic assessments on a variety of dairy products, mainly cheese, butter & cream.
• Work in partnership with Business Units ensuring technical topics are embedded in any day-to-day work.
• Gather 3rd party certificates & reports for all factories and distribute as necessary.
• Take an active role in business cross-functional projects.
• Raise awareness of issues related to food safety, legal and quality risks on products to TAM.
• Support the business and participate with CSR related topics as and when required.
• Organise, prepare and lead the trained panel.
• Manage consumers' calls and log complaints.

The Skills You'll Need to Succeed:

• Food science degree or equivalent.
• Demonstrated knowledge and experience in Food Safety (HACCP) & BRC.
• Experience with UK retailers and food services specifications systems.
• Experience in providing excellent customer service.
• Demonstrated ability to interact effectively with people at different levels.
• Ability to challenge others in a respectful way.
• Strong levels of analytical & curiosity & ability to cross-check information.
• Good at planning and organizing workload to meet deadlines.
• Ability to work as part of a team and to work on own initiative.
• Attention to detail.
• Good verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to deliver pro-active and reactive support.
• Proficiency using key software (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams).
• Be able to travel in the UK & EU as and when required.
• Clean driving license (1 year +).

We would be grateful if you could send your CV as a Word document. If your application is successful, you will be contacted within 7 days. We regret that due to the high volume of applications we receive we cannot provide feedback on individual CVs. Please note that we can only consider candidates who are eligible to work in the UK and are able to provide relevant supporting documentation.

People First is committed to increasing diversity and maintaining an inclusive workplace culture. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates regardless of their ethnicity, race, gender, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, year of birth, relationship status or whether or not they have a disability.

People First (Recruitment) Limited acts as an employment agency for permanent and fixed term contract recruitment and as an employment business for the supply of temporary workers.

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