RD&A Senior Technologist II
Kerry · Bristol, South West England
Our estimate of how close this job is to decisions about what protein a business sources, specifies, buys and serves. How we score
Why this role matters
How close this job is to real sourcing and menu decisions.
This role sits inside the formulation of meat coatings and meat seasonings, the actual recipes and ingredient systems that determine what a meat product tastes like, costs, and is made from before it reaches a customer's factory floor. Someone in this seat shapes ingredient functionality, cost parameters and manufacturing specifications for meat-based products at scale, across European customer briefs produced in Thailand. It is a genuine technical lever, even though it isn't a supplier-standards or category-buying seat. The real long-term value here is what it builds: deep food science and formulation credibility, cross-functional experience spanning R&D, business development and manufacturing, and direct exposure to how a major taste-and-nutrition supplier operates inside meat supply chains. That knowledge and network is exactly what someone would need later to move into a role with more direct influence over reformulation toward plant-based alternatives or supplier specification standards. This is a technical foothold, not yet a lever over what gets bought or how it's specified.
Where this role can take you
What this job teaches you, and the jobs it can lead to.
What you'd build
- Meat product formulation
- Ingredient functionality assessment
- Customer-facing product development
- Cross-functional project delivery
- Competitor and sensory analysis
Where it can lead
- Principal Technologist
- R&D Manager
- Category Technical Manager
Roles like these can hold broader sign-off over ingredient specifications and technical standards across a wider product category, including animal-derived raw materials.
About the role
Kerry is recruiting a Senior RD&A Technologist II based in Portbury, Bristol, to lead development of Meat Coatings systems and meat seasonings in partnership with the company's Thailand RD&A team. The role leads projects initiated by European customers for production in Thailand, developing innovative product concepts and renovating existing products while working within cost parameters, manufacturing capability, and legal requirements in the country of use. Key responsibilities include creating value-added, differentiated products through manufacturing process and ingredient knowledge; building relationships with key personnel within allocated accounts through visits, presentations and customer factory trials; working closely with business development to understand customer requirements and win briefs; ensuring ingredient functionality meets customer expectations; overseeing projects from brief through to handover to the Thai team for factory-stage production; and developing food system formulations with an understanding of food formulation and chemical interactions. The role also involves maintaining awareness of developments across Kerry (with a Thailand focus) to build competitive USPs, carrying out competitor and product awareness analysis including sensory evaluations and retail reviews, and undertaking training visits to Thailand to work with the local RD&A and regulatory teams. Flexibility and willingness to travel within EMEA and to Thailand are required. Essential qualifications and skills are a BSc in food science or equivalent, extensive experience in the snack industry, experience in top note development for savoury applications, and customer-facing experience. The advert notes Kerry does not accept CVs from recruitment agencies without signed terms of business.
This is an extract. Read the full advert on the employer's site.
Key terms to include in your CV and cover letter
What this employer is asking for, in their words. Applications are often screened by software looking for exact phrases, so if these describe your experience, use their wording.
- food science degree
- product formulation
- food formulation chemistry
- ingredient functionality
- new product development
- snack industry experience
- savoury flavour development
- top note development
- customer-facing experience
- cross-functional collaboration
- project delivery
- sensory evaluation
- competitor analysis
- regulatory compliance
- manufacturing capability assessment
How to position yourself
The language that works with hiring managers for this kind of job.
Frame your interest around product innovation, cost-in-use and manufacturability, the language Kerry already uses for "value added products with a point of difference", rather than any welfare or sustainability angle the advert doesn't raise. Build and highlight food science formulation expertise and cross-functional project delivery (customer brief through to launch), since those are the explicit qualifications sought; if you want to build toward the alternative-protein track later, note any experience with savoury flavour systems or reformulation as transferable groundwork.
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