PepsiCo

Product Development Manager, Food Ventures

PepsiCo Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

Food and Beverage Services · 10,001+ employees

Yesterday
Mid (2-5 yrs) Full-time Spain
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About the role

The Product Development Manager is responsible for transforming culinary concepts into functional, scalable product prototypes and recipes. They collaborate with cross-functional teams to manage pilot trials, troubleshoot production issues, and ensure high-quality product delivery.

What they look for

Product Development Culinary Innovation Food Science Prototyping Recipe Formulation Scale-up Food Technology Quality Assurance Supply Chain Collaboration Troubleshooting Technical Documentation Pilot Trials R&D Project Management Food Safety

Requirements

Candidates should hold a degree in Food Science, Culinary Innovation, or a related field and possess 3-5 years of hands-on R&D experience. Proficiency in food commercialization, scale-up processes, and technical documentation is essential for this role.

Full description

Overview

The Product Developer plays a key role in transforming chef-created gold standards into functional, testable product prototypes and recipes. This role is highly hands-on—supporting the development, iteration, and validation of MVPs (Minimum Viable Products) that bridge culinary intent with real-world technical feasibility.

Responsibilities

Prototype and MVP Development:

  • Execute hands-on development of early culinary product prototypes based on direction from Chefs and senior product developers.
  • Works on simple projects in autonomy to deliver prototypes and scalable recipes
  • Support product evaluations, reformulations, and recipe adjustments to align with gold-standard targets
  • Document preparation parameters and product performance to support product iteration and scale-up.
  • Provide input on product handling, quality challenges and pack-out implications.
  • Organize samples, build variants, and prepare materials for sprint reviews and tastings.

Collaboration & Scale-Up Support

  • Work closely with the Chefs, Process development, Supply Chain and quality teams to prepare products for pilot trials.
  • Support troubleshooting during early-stage co-manufacturing or test production runs.
  • Support the product development Managers in daily tasks for complex projects
  • Maintain accurate logs of formulas, build notes, test results, ingredients challenges and learnings, etc.
  • Ensure traceability and development hygiene for all product iterations.

Success in This Role Looks Like

  • High-quality, well-documented prototypes delivered on time and within COGS
  • Strong collaboration and communication with culinary, technical, and operational partners.
  • Rapid iteration with clear learnings feeding into the next development cycle.
  • Prototypes that are practical, consistent, and ready for handoff to senior developers or scale-up leads.

Qualifications

  • Degree in Food Science, Culinary Innovation, Food Technology, Engineering, or related field preferred.
  • 3–5 years of hands-on product development experience in food, culinary innovation, or R&D kitchens.
  • Experience within at east 2 of these technologies within Savory products: Ready Meals, Frozen foods, Pasteurization, chilled meals, shelf stable and/or culinary products.
  • Experience with product comercialization and product scale up.
  • FSQA experience is a major plus
  • Strong practical culinary ability to prototype quickly and accurately.
  • Comfortable in fast-paced, ambiguous R&D environments.
  • Familiarity with pilot production or co-man processes is a plus.
  • Excellent organization, documentation, collaboration and communication skills.
  • Ability to find solutions and proactivity complete the profile