Product Developer - The Café

An exciting opportunity for a true foodie with hospitality experience to join our Tesco Café business, owning the development of a broad range of categories. As the product developer within an out of home hospitality business, you will have a varied and dynamic role working cross-functionally owning the development of NPD & EPD food & drink products. This role will suit an individual who genuinely loves to get hands on in a kitchen environment.

With 316 Cafes and a new Coffee Shop concept across the mainland UK and Northern Ireland the food development strategy plays an important part of the overarching proposition to ensure we deliver the best quality products to the customer. No two days are ever the same!

You will be responsible for:

Hands-on kitchen development of new, innovative products that meet the needs of customer whilst being commercially and operationally effective.
Management of recipe development working closely alongside the commercial team for accurate costings.
Guardian of allergen & nutrition management. Collate comprehensive allergen information for all new and existing products, ensuring compliance and customer safety.
Ensure that all products created in a development kitchen can easily be made to the same quality in the café.
Review kitchen equipment and set up to ensure we have the best equipment to deliver quality products to the customer.
Build strong, collaborative relationships with internal stakeholders and external suppliers – this role will involve presenting directly to the Senior Leadership Team.
Ensure appropriate route to market of all required new ingredients.
Organise & deliver food development sessions to present new dishes, equipment, and recommendations to the leadership team.
Run regional training sessions to cascade new development launches to the operations teams.
Spend time working in cafes of the business and continuously review development WOW for improvement.
Own the generation of supporting food documents for recipes and food management system including costing. Produce in-store operating manuals and supplementary photography and videos.
Support marketing team & stylist on photoshoots and organising food samples.
Support operational team directly on product queries.
Develop a strong understanding of the competitor landscape and share with the wider team through launch reviews and monthly newsletter.

You will need:

Food science qualification or equivalent experience
Strong attention to detail, with experience in allergen & nutrition management
A passionate foodie who can communicate and share their passion.
Enthusiasm to get hands on in kitchens, developing products and understanding the café kitchen processes
Collaborative worker with a strong drive and determination to deliver new products to market
Ability to translate trends and customer data into tangible new products
Good communication, influence, and presentation skills – this role will involve presenting directly to senior leadership team.
Great organisational skills.
Flexibility, and ability to plan and adapt to changing priorities.
Innovative and creative thinker
Knowledge of Food Safety Legislation/HACCP, Basic food hygiene requirement.
Microsoft Office experience
Driving licence.

What's in it for you:

We’re all about the little helps. That’s why we give our wonderful colleagues bags of benefits. Including wellbeing services, an award-winning pension scheme and much, much more, our colleague reward package keeps on giving. And helps make every day a little better for you and your family. These include but are not limited to:

Colleague bonus scheme
Holiday starting at 25 days plus a personal day (plus Bank holidays)
Buy holiday salary sacrifice scheme (for salaried roles)
Retirement savings plan - save between 4% and 7.5% and Tesco will match your contribution
Life Assurance - 5 x contractual pay
26 weeks maternity and adoption leave (after 1 years’ service) at full pay, followed by 13 weeks of Statutory Maternity Pay or Statutory Adoption Pay, we also offer 4 weeks fully paid paternity leave
The right to request flexible working from your first day with us
Free 24/7 virtual GP service, Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) for you and your family, free access to a range of experts to support your mental wellbeing
A Colleague Clubcard for you & a family member (after 3 months of service), giving you access to lots of discounts in-store & online
Great colleague deals and discounts, saving you money on everyday purchases, eating out and utility bills for the home
Access to our colleague networks providing a space for colleagues to come together from a range of backgrounds. For more information about our colleague networks please click here
Opportunities to get on - take advantage of our ongoing learning opportunities and award-winning training, to help you achieve the job and career you want

Click Here to read more about the full range of benefits we have available for our colleagues

About us:

Our vision at Tesco is to become every customer's favourite way to shop, whether they are at home or out on the move. Our core purpose is 'Serving our customers, communities and planet a little better every day'. Serving means more than a transactional relationship with our customers. It means acting as a responsible and sustainable business for all stakeholders, for the communities we are part of and for the planet.

We are proud to have an inclusive culture at Tesco where everyone truly feels able to be themselves. At Tesco, we not only celebrate diversity, but recognise the value and opportunity it brings. We're committed to creating a workplace where differences are valued, and make sure that all colleagues are given the same opportunities. We're a big business with diverse working patterns and many business areas which means that we can find something that works for you. Everyone is welcome at Tesco.

We have recently announced that we will be moving towards a more blended working week – combining office and remote working. Our offices will continue to be where we connect, collaborate and innovate. Please talk to us to about how this can work for you.

NOTE: Should you be successful in your application, your offer will be subject to and conditional upon you providing your bank account details on your agreed start date.

We're proud to have been accredited Disability Confident Leader and we're committed to providing a fully inclusive and accessible recruitment process. For further information on the accessibility support we can offer, please visit https://www.tesco-careers.com/accessibility