Job Summary
The Culinary R&D Assistant plays a crucial role in supporting research and development chefs in creating innovative products. Responsibilities include maintaining a clean and organized Culinary Center, ensuring development workstations are equipped with necessary tools and materials, preparing R&D samples for shipment, and providing culinary support by preparing and cooking customer samples. Additionally, this role serves as an ambassador for "Honoring Food".
Roles and Responsibilities
- Maintains a neat, sanitized, and organized Culinary Center, including kitchen, pantry, cooler, and freezer space.
- Maintains par levels of stock items to ensure a high level of quality through rotation, labeling, and storage.
- Requisitions and records usage of raw materials/ingredients
- Responsible for setting up kitchen equipment each morning
- Gathers recipes, collates ingredient needs, and garners necessary raw materials from the factory daily.
- Keeps the culinary team supplied with clean and sanitized equipment, and raw materials throughout the day as needed
- Oversee and ensure effectiveness of the sample request program
- Coordinate processing of all product sample orders from request through timely and professional delivery
- Process all incoming product sample requests from Sales Team, Executives, R&D Chefs, QA Teams, and others.
- Work with Cross-Plant Customer Service, Product Development and Shipping Teams to ensure product is pulled and/or manufactured against sample request dates.
- Pack all sample requests to requested specifications, including all corresponding support materials
- Track all samples and alert appropriate team members of any issues or delays to delivery, troubleshooting when necessary to solve critical delivery requirements.
- Additional responsibilities as needed.
Level of Responsibility
- Works under close supervision and has little or no decision-making responsibility.
- Position is not responsible for influencing the decisions or actions of others.
- Position has indirect contact with customers on matters of little impact on revenue.
- Position has little or no impact on revenue, actions and results are subject to review or inspections.
- Decisions or actions have a limited impact on the business – typically within a department. Errors are usually detected through routine verification/review, but may result in some workflow disruption or repetition of work.
- This role is pivotal in supporting culinary innovation and maintaining high standards within the organization's research and development processes.
Supervisory Responsibilities
- Position is not responsible for supervising or influencing the actions of others.
Skill Required
- High School diploma or GED required.
- Working knowledge of production kitchen and/or factory experience a plus
- On-the-job training of 3-6 months.
- Must have working knowledge of MS Office programs, specifically Excel and Outlook.
- Bilingual English/Spanish a plus.
Working Conditions and Physical Effort
The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those a R and D Assistant encounters while performing the essential functions of this job.
Physical Demands/Efforts
- Work requires physical exertion including some lifting of objects weighing up to 60 pounds
- Willing and able to stand for long periods of time
Mental & Visual Demands
- Work performed by this position requires moderate mental concentration to effectively execute moderately complex tasks.
- Work requires continuous visual effort for extended periods of time.
Work Environment and Hazards
- Employee works in a manufacturing setting with frequent exposure to heat/cold, dust, or other factors that may require protective equipment and still pose a hazard.
- This position has regular exposure to hazards that could result in significate injury and lengthy loss of time at work.
- Travel is not required for this position.
Additional Skills
- Passion for food
- Experience with pace of restaurant or factory environment a plus
- Possess cleaning and sanitation skills
- Basic knowledge of raw materials/ingredients
- ServSafe certification a plus
- Ability to adapt and multi-task via a dynamic work environment with a positive attitude
Americans with Disabilities Act
Kettle Cuisine complies with all aspects of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and state disability laws. This means we will not discriminate against qualified individuals with a disability in any phase of the employment relationship including application for employment, hiring, promotions and/or advancement opportunities, termination, compensation, training and any other conditions or privileges of employment.
Core Values
Kettle Cuisine takes the utmost pride in its people, products and reputation. Each employee is expected to understand and live our Core Values every day.
Honor Food – We create and produce the best tasting, safest, all natural recipes that strive for perfection in every batch, from bench to kettle
Honor Each Other – We seek to develop trusting, respectful and mutually rewarding relationships with all our team members and business partners
Honor Development – We recognize and nurture each other’s talents, strengths and interests in order to further strengthen and grow our team
Honor Innovation – We continually strive for creative and sustainable ways to achieve excellence
