Senior Food Technologist - 12 Month FTC

Changing the world of pet food for good. We’re Tails.com, a dog food subscription company with a big difference. We create truly tailored food for each and every dog we serve. We start by asking people a few simple questions about their dog. Then we use that information to create their dog’s unique Tails.com recipe – so their dog gets exactly the nutrition they need, in the taste they love, delivered to their door every month. It’s clever stuff. We’ve got bold plans. Having created an entirely new category in pet food, we’re now scaling fast – backed by Purina, one of the world’s largest pet food companies. You’ll join a bunch of smart people working towards the same goals – and a bunch of smart-ish dogs, all working on their own thing. Together, we’ll change the world of pet food for good.

We’re building a brand, fast. We set ambitious goals. We challenge and support each other in equal measure. At the pace we’re moving, we prefer to test ideas and learn quickly rather than spend months building a business case. That means we celebrate when things go right, and we learn when things go wrong.

The role involves:

• Executing food product innovation and renovation across our Dry & Wet dog food ranges.
• Leading a small team of food and specification technologists.
• Working cross‑functionally with multiple departments across the business.

You will be responsible for:

• Product Development, Optimisation & Management: Working closely with project managers to execute food based changes to our range, using the stage gate process.
• Partnering with experts in the Proposition & Innovation teams to align development direction for new products & delivering to this agreed direction through to launch.
• Partnering with Quality, Supply Chain, & Procurement teams to identify opportunity areas for product optimisation, & execute changes.
• Building effective collaborative development relationships with our suppliers.
• Collaboration with product / ingredient suppliers to bring our solutions to life, being responsible to hold our suppliers to SLAs on delivering innovation to meet our launch deadlines.
• Claims substantiation: Supporting the Innovation Managers throughout the innovation process to understand & identify claims which can be associated with the products in development.
• Working in collaboration with the Regulatory & Compliance Manager to ensure awareness of their recommendations.
• Substantiating new product claims ahead of launch, complying at all times with the claims process.
• Ensuring that claims substantiation is maintained & updated as necessary throughout the lifecycle of the product.
• Maintaining awareness of new relevant studies as well as proactively maintaining an awareness via industry periodicals.
• Food Philosophy: Ensuring that the Tails.com Food Philosophy is maintained, along with nutritional, design guidelines, & other key resources for the Innovation team.
• Issue Management & Resolution: Supporting the resolution of incidents & shortages, making clear recommendations on food risk & proposed next steps.

The Skills You’ll Bring:

• Previous experience in Pet food related product development, food technical, nutritionist role, or similar Food Science or Animal Nutrition degree is desirable.
• Passion for leading & developing a small team of food technologists.
• Experience in working with & developing products in partnership with suppliers & co‑manufacturers.
• A commercial mindset, able to input on business cases to aid sizing of innovation projects.
• Tools & Platforms: Spec track or similar specification management experience.
• Theoretical nutrition modelling experience.

What's in it for you?

• Competitive salary, reviewed annually.
• Flexible core hours, giving you true work life balance.
• Hybrid role to ensure this role works for you.
• 25 days of holiday (excluding bank holidays) which increases over time to a max of 27 days.
• 9/10 day working week to enhance your wellbeing without a reduction in pay and leave allowance.
• Optional 5 days unpaid leave and 1 paid volunteer day each year.
• Health insurance for you, paid by Tails.com.
• Extended maternity, paternity, shared parental and adoption pay.
• Flexible paid care leave to support immediate dependants, people close to you and pets.
• In house L&D team, with access to year round courses to help drive your development.
• 50% discount on all Tails.com products.
• Discounted gym membership.

Our Commitment: We’re proud to be an active equal opportunity employer. We want to give everyone a fair chance to join us in changing the world of pet food for good. We do this by conducting a structured recruitment process for all candidates, as well as actively promoting our roles to communities that are under‑represented at Tails.com.