Food Scientist- Bakery/Dough

The Marzetti Company (Nasdaq: MZTI) manufactures and sells specialty food products. Our retail brands include Marzetti® dressings and dips, New York Bakery™ garlic breads, and Sister Schubert’s® dinner rolls, in addition to exclusive license agreements for Olive Garden® dressings, Chick-fil-A® sauces and dressings, Buffalo Wild Wings® sauces, Arby’s® sauces, Subway® sauces, and Texas Roadhouse® steak sauces and frozen rolls. Our foodservice business supplies sauces, dressings, breads, and pasta to many of the top restaurant chains in the United States.

At Marzetti, our mission is to make every meal better through high-quality, flavorful food. Led by our purpose, to nourish growth with all that we do, our team members are dedicated to creating great tasting food and cultivating deep and lasting relationships.

As a Sr Food Scientist (Grain & Dough), this role directly shapes the innovation pipeline, owning ideation through commercialization—not only to create novel bakery products, but to drive topline growth, define pipeline metrics, and deliver share/margin gains. The individual will serve as a catalyst for innovation across bakery channels and consumer segments, setting measurable growth targets (e.g. new product revenue or margin) and delivering to brand performance goals.

• Product & Process Development:
• Responsible for Grain & Dough projects in the Retail and Food Service businesses.
• Provide strategic leadership for the end to end innovation process, from consumer-insight-driven ideation through commercialization, with defined growth KPIs (e.g. percent of annual revenue from new launches, incremental margins, speed to market).
• Optimize formulations and processes for taste, texture, shelf-life, and cost effectiveness.
• Explore emerging ingredient technologies (e.g., enzymes, stabilizers, flavors) to enhance product performance and drive margin enhancement.

• Technical Leadership & Expertise:
• Serve as the technical resource for bakery product development.
• Partners with Procurement, Quality, Regulatory, and Operations to validate, commission, and optimize raw materials, formulations, and manufacturing processes.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship with a growth mindset—mentoring R&D teams on innovation methods, impact-focused experimentation, and commercial success factors.

• Regulatory & Quality Compliance:
• Ensure all formulations comply with FDA, FSMA, and relevant food safety regulations.
• Work closely with regulatory affairs to develop accurate ingredient declarations and compliant nutrition panels.
• Collaborate with Quality Assurance to verify product specifications and maintain consistency through production.

• Commercialization & Process Optimization:
• Lead plant trials and support production launches.
• Partner with Operations and Engineering teams to seamlessly transition formulations from lab-scale to commercial production.
• Partner with Operations teams to optimize production processes and meet/maintain product specifications.

• Cross Functional Collaboration & Industry Engagement:
• Collaborate with internal cross functional project teams: Culinary, Brand Management/Consumer Insights, Procurement, and Sales to align product and customer strategies with business objectives.
• Engage with supplier and industry partners to stay ahead of emerging ingredient technologies and global food trends.

Travel up to 40% associated with this role

• Bachelor’s Degree in Food Technology/Science, Food Engineering, Bakery Science or a related field.
• Experience in Bakery or Grain-based applications.
• Experience with Stage Gate process in relation to product and process development.
• Strong background in experimental design, COGS, and bakery ingredient functionality
• Proven track record of innovation led business growth
• Demonstrated success in shaping or leading innovation pipelines, working with cross-functional teams to deliver growth targets
• Experience working with commercial / Brand / Sales functions to translate R&D efforts into measurable growth outcomes; familiar with stage-gate commercialization tied to P&L performance.