About the Role
Are you inspired by all of the possibilities at the grocery store or new restaurant in town? Do you get excited when the brands you love offer new and exciting flavors and varieties? When you don’t find exactly what you’re looking for, do you dream it up or make it yourself? If so, you might just belong here at SRG.
Imagine doing all the above for some of the biggest and most exciting food and beverage brands in the world. And if that’s not inspiring enough, you’ll get to mix, stir, shake, bake, and more from our in-house development kitchen in the heart of the Foodiest Town in America — Boulder, Colorado.
Sterling-Rice Group is known for its culinary expertise and for disrupting the food world with the new and impossible — the grocery store IS our case study. We are looking for an Associate Culinary Developer to interact directly and intensively with SRG’s Culinary Director and Managing Director, Culinary, playing a key role in delivering the highest-quality culinary work in the Restaurant/Hospitality, Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), and Retail sectors of the foodscape. This opportunity to work on a dynamic and growing team provides extensive visibility across a wide range of sector- and industry-leading clients on a variety of exciting projects.
The Impact You Will Have
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Participate in ideations and develop recipes for a variety of products and menu items on behalf of CPG and Foodservice clients
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Drive the recipe vetting process post-workshop, refining and standardizing menu item builds within the SRG format
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Own — with consultation from the Culinary Director and the Managing Director, Culinary — primary responsibility for the operation of the Back of House of SRG’s Boulder, CO Culinary Center, including cleaning and maintenance, provisioning of supplies, and other daily operational details
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Provide support to SRG Culinary and Culinary Council members prior to and during ideations and workshops
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Participate as a culinary team member at trade shows, client meetings, and other culinary presentations from the planning phase through execution, preparing materials for shipment and acting as a representative of SRG Culinary during those engagements
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Assist the Culinary Director in the research for and development of SRG Culinary intellectual property that highlights trends and insights, emerging ingredients and techniques, and other strategic or tactical details
What You Bring to the Role
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Passion for excellence in food quality and an ability to build/refine systems that sustain that quality
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Operational expertise as pertains to facility management, including equipment maintenance, sanitation and food safety, commercial kitchen design, and culinary process efficiency
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Ability to evaluate diverse problems and situations and to address and solve with thoughtful, effective strategy and tactics
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Ability to transition quickly and seamlessly between high-level strategic thinking and front-line tactical problem-solving
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Excellent communication skills — written, verbal, technical, and general — that incorporate diplomacy where warranted and consider audience, context, and urgency
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Direct experience in menu item recipe development across a range of culinary styles, from mainstream to elevated
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Industry-level curiosity around trends and insights that are germane to SRG Culinary’s practice areas, specifically in Restaurant/Hospitality and Consumer Packaged Goods
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Ability to interact confidently with a range of constituents, internal and external, including SRG department leads and their teams, vendors and suppliers, client leads and their teams, and the general public, at trade and other shows where you will represent SRG or its clients
Responsibilities
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Culinary research and development
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Ideation
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Recipe development
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Culinary innovation project support
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Preparation for culinary workshops/tastings
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Culinary event coordination and support
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Communicate promptly and effectively with clients about the scope, process, and materials proposed, all within parameters of the targeted delivery, to achieve successful project completion
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Provide administrative support to the Managing Director, Culinary, and Culinary Director. Tasks include:
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Recipe auditing, scaling, and formatting
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Concept writeups
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Support the culinary needs of SRG chefs, account team, and production teams across a variety of projects and stages, from initiation through client presentations, emphasizing teamwork, excellence, and expediency
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Test kitchen management duties
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Effectively and collegially communicate with vendors to ensure optimal relationships and accounts
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Manage and maintain SOPs, monthly product donations, maintenance and preventative maintenance, inventory, and place supply/equipment orders
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Facilitate outreach and correspondence as needed with current and prospective Culinary Council chefs, including personal industry connections
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Brainstorm, collaborate, and offer solutions for challenges and issues with the culinary innovation team
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Assist in the coordination and support of industry events (offsite summits, conferences, workshops, tastings, demonstrations, and others) to ensure successful execution. Tasks include:
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Assist in logistics planning with event host and hotel chefs
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Source and procure products, equipment, and/or paper goods for event
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Scale and batch recipes/ingredients for high-volume setting
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Prep, pack, and ship product to the show
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Attend shows
Description of the Right Candidate:
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Displays an insatiable passion for foodservice and CPG and possesses national-level foodservice expertise and credibility
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Exhibits strong interpersonal and relationship-building skills that are supported by finely tuned written and verbal communications
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Can work independently as well as collaboratively to accomplish work plans
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Leads with a client service orientation, driving engagements with a problem-solving mindset
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Can serve as a culinary and cross-departmental skill player:
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Proven ability to contribute to client-ready project deliverables (including briefs, concepts, marketing plans, trend presentations)
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Ability to contribute to kitchen engagements, including participating on teams of chefs for FOH (demonstrations, cuttings) and BOH (ideation, protocepting) experiences
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Accomplishes project goals outside of experience area
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Fosters SRG agency and SRG Culinary departmental culture
Requirements:
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Residency in Colorado’s Front Range
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Has 3+ years of relevant experience, which could include a culinary role in a dynamic foodservice/CPG organization or an R+D role at a CPG food development/innovation company
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Holds a professional culinary degree, food science degree, and/or bachelor’s degree; an advanced degree is a plus, but not required