Senior Research Chef & Food Scientist

Job Summary

Are you passionate about creating impactful food solutions that bring together creativity, science, and customer success?

IFF is a global leader in flavors, fragrances, food ingredients and health & biosciences. We deliver sustainable innovations that elevate everyday products.

Taste: Crafting unique, technology-enabled flavor designs that define the identity of food and beverage brands, shape trends in flavor building, and fuel market success.

The role is based in South Brunswick, NJ. Join a collaborative, innovative, and solution-oriented team where your expertise contributes to meaningful products used around the world. Your potential is our inspiration.

Where You’ll Make a Difference

• High level of knowledge of recipe ingredients and raw materials and their function
• Independently navigates both customer and internal projects from start to finish and acts as a project leader
• Develops and improves application formulations and finished product formulations using knowledge of industrial standards, creativity, country specific and client requirements
• Researches, refines and upgrades solutions for customer projects
• Maintains and continuously renovates application-specific recipe database
• Maximizes flavor and ingredients performance through recipe design
• Provides flavors, food systems and ingredients driven solutions utilizing creative problem-solving skills
• Reviews, renews and renovates flavor repositories in-line with established metrics
• Identifies flavor repositories gaps and actions and addresses with appropriate expertise or resource
• Continues to build flavor attribute and language knowledge and articulate with others in the team and on projects
• Uses Creativity and Innovation skills for customer, industry and investor presentations
• Able and willing to mentor others in the organization, including Food Designers and Research Chefs

What Makes You The Right Fit

• B.S. or higher in Food Science or a related discipline (e.g., Chemistry, Culinary Science, Human Nutrition)
• Minimum 10 years of experience in the industrial food or preferred flavor industry.
• Experience as a Research Chef with developing products in an industrial food environment. However, we are equally interested in executive/head chefs with strong culinary expertise who have gained food science, product development, or R&D experience in Food Consumer Packaged Goods manufacturing
• The ideal candidate combines deep culinary expertise with a strong foundation in food science and product development, and commercialization.
• 2–3 years of experience working in cross-functional teams in roles such as project leader.
• Proven ability to manage multiple, high-value projects independently with strong planning and decision-making skills.
• Excellent communication, collaboration, and presentation skills with internal and external stakeholders.

How Would You Stand Out?

• Strong understanding of sensory evaluation, consumer insights, and their application to successful product design.
• Experience contributing to global or regional innovation programs and technology platforms.
• Recognized technical expertise with the ability to mentor and develop junior colleagues.

Why Choose Us?

• Opportunity to work on high-impact, global customer projects.
• Exposure to industry-leading technology, ingredients, and innovation platforms.
• Continuous learning and professional development opportunities.
• The chance to shape regional and global technical strategies.
• Competitive total rewards aligned with experience and impact.

We are a global leader in taste, scent, and nutrition, offering our customers a broader range of natural solutions and accelerating our growth strategy. At IFF, we believe that your uniqueness unleashes our potential. We value the diverse mosaic of the ethnicity, national origin, race, age, sex, or veteran status. We strive for an inclusive workplace that allows each of our colleagues to bring their authentic self to work regardless of their religion, gender identity & expression, sexual orientation, or disability.

Visit IFF.com/careers/workplace-diversity-and-inclusion to learn more

Salary Ranges:

97,916.00ㅤ-ㅤ139,880.00ㅤUSD