NPD Manager - Desserts
North West
Permanent
Are you a passionate and creative food developer with experience leading successful NPD projects from initial brief through to concept approval?
We are recruiting an NPD Manager to join a well-established food manufacturer within its desserts category. This is a hands-on concept development role, offering the opportunity to lead exciting customer projects while nurturing and developing a small, close-knit team.
You will take ownership of the concept development process, transforming customer briefs and emerging food trends into commercially viable products. The business has a dedicated process development team, so your focus will remain firmly on creativity, concept development, managing your team and delivering an outstanding customer experience.
The role:
- Leading customer NPD projects from initial brief through to concept handover
- Managing critical paths and ensuring projects remain on track
- Developing creative, commercially viable dessert concepts
- Presenting to retail customers.
- Working closely with customers to understand their requirements and build trusted relationships
- Collaborating with process, technical, commercial and operational teams
- Supporting the smooth handover of approved concepts into the process development team
- Leading, coaching and nurturing one direct report
- Helping to create a positive, passionate and collaborative team environment
- Staying ahead of consumer trends, emerging flavours and market activity
About you:
- Proven experience leading NPD or product development projects within food manufacturing
- Strong experience managing NPD critical paths
- A creative, hands-on developer who remains close to the product
- Ideally experienced in bakery, desserts, chocolate, confectionery or another sweet category
- Candidates from other fast-paced food categories, including ready meals, will also be considered
- Previous line-management, coaching or mentoring experience would be advantageous
- Confident communicating with retail customers and presenting product concepts
- Passionate, energetic and people-focused, with a nurturing leadership style
- Able to balance creativity with commercial awareness and delivery
This role would suit an experienced Senior Product Developer, Lead Developer or existing NPD Manager who wants to take ownership of a category while remaining actively involved in hands-on concept development.
You will be joining a supportive business where concept and process development are managed by dedicated teams, giving you the space to focus on creativity, customers and developing brilliant products.
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