Job Description

About the Wellness Pet Company

The Wellness Pet Company crafts and produces premium natural pet food, treats, dental chews, and supplements. We believe that natural, premium nutrition focused on proven health outcomes is the foundation of creating mutual wellbeing for pets and their families. As a community of people, Wellies are positively obsessed with how to win for pets and their parents. We believe in the difference we make every single day, and we know that when we work collaboratively. Join us on our adventure to fulfill a life of wellbeing together with pets and their parents.

What You’ll Accomplish

Based out of our Corporate Headquarters in Burlington, MA, this individual will report to the Senior Manager of Product Development and will manage a team of 2 employees. The Product Development Manager - Pet Food, is responsible for supporting new product development and will lead product formulation-related areas including recipe development, ingredient research, investigation, validation, bench-top and pilot trails, and scale up and commissioning runs, product and process performance, and functions as the champion between product development and other functional groups.

This position is based out of our Burlington, MA headquarters location, where we work a required hybrid schedule of in-office on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays and remote on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Key Areas of Responsibility Include:

• New Product Development
  • Creates development plans based on concepts shared by the business.
  • Communicates and manages the timeline developed by the Project Management team to ensure on time and on budget execution.
  • Communicates updates/milestones to senior leadership.
• Provides leadership for all aspects of development (new ingredient investigation, product evaluation, processing performance, and all other checks through all phases of the development process.)
• Technical Service
  • Provides real-time technical support to all internal and external (global) partners.
  • Supports Product Change Request (product, process, operation, Ingredient, etc.) and contributes to project planning, timeline development, risk assessment and execution.
• Innovation
  • Integrates technical strengths with creativity in new product development and process design.
  • Actively lead/participate in strategic innovation session and lead new technology exploration & feasibility.

In addition, for this specific role, we are seeking an individual with strong subject matter understanding in pet food development areas including but not limited to AAFCO regulations, animal nutrition, and the technical depth to drive development of all product types in our portfolio. Candidates should also possess:

• A bachelor’s degree in food science or food engineering, meat science, process engineering or a related discipline
• A minimum of 5-7 years of relevant recent experience in pet food and a focus on project management and experience managing people.
• Experience with taking projects from idea generation to bench-top trials, to scale up and commercialization. Can articulate the new product development process.
• An understanding of food manufacturing processes and the sequence of events necessary to convert raw materials to finished products.
• Strong communication and influencing skills, specifically with the ability to distill complex activities to keep non-technical audiences well-informed and aligned on best course of actions.
• Strong leadership skills with a high degree of emotional intelligence, experienced in leading a high-performance team preferred.
• Strong business acumen and comfortable working with ambiguity; good sense of urgency and excellent at time/activity management & prioritization.
• Adaptable, approachable, and experienced in coaching & mentoring.
• Able to work in both office and plant environments with exposure to noise, equipment, and machinery.

Who We’re Looking For

Team Wellie is a group of people who are truly obsessed with all the best ways about winning for the consumer and the pets they love. And so, we are seeking an individual who:

• Is consumer focused on all they do.
• Continually challenge themselves to go the extra mile to get the job done, and ensure it’s done the right way as opposed to the easy way.
• Hold themselves and others accountable.
• Embraces continual development through the sharing of feedback and investment in learning opportunities.
• Is a true collaborator, sharing resources, and engages in healthy debate.
• Celebrates differences and strives to learn from others who are different from themselves.
• Give back to their community and support sustainable practices.

Why Work for Wellness Pet

We care about the wellbeing of our people, their families, and their pets. We treat every Wellie to a comprehensive benefits package full of extras to support their health, pets, passions, and Professional Development. More information about our benefits can be found on our website. The Wellness Pet Company is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. We celebrate diversity and are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status.

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