R&D Chef

Founded in 2013, Home Chef is the leading meal solutions company with both a retail and online presence. Available online at homechef.com and in retail at more than 2,100 Kroger grocery stores, Home Chef is committed to inspiring and enabling more people to cook simple, delicious meals, no matter how busy they are.

In 2023, Home Chef introduced a new brand, Tempo! Tempo features a rotating selection of ready-to-heat meals delivered directly to your door. These meals are better-for-you versions of familiar favorites, designed to save you time and reduce stress while maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Our Tempo menu includes options that are protein-packed, fiber-rich, calorie and carb conscious, keto-friendly, and dietitian-approved.

Similar to our recipes, we recognize that variety is the spice of life, and therefore, our employees also bring their uniqueness and color to our fantastic team. We’re eager to work with humble team players and pragmatic next-level thinkers to innovate on Home Chef’s offerings.

The Research and Development Chef I will conceive and create new recipes for the Home Chef menu that meet our nutritional, cost and ingredient specifications. This is a kitchen centric role that works cross functionally throughout the department.

Detailed Responsibilities

R&D New Meals

• Conceive accessible, creative new recipes in the test kitchen that apply to cost, ingredient, caloric/nutritional, and time constraints
• Collaborate with kitchen team, to improve and test each other’s dishes, potentially coordinating daily taster assignments
• Take extensive and honest feedback every day on meal accessibility and flavors and incorporate into recipes
• Work closely with the recipe development team to ensure constraints are met, recipe tester feedback is incorporated, and customers will be able to execute meals
• Collaborates with photography team in order to plate dishes in a way that will appeal to customers for menu surveys
• Manages a minimum average rating of 4.00 with equal success across all product lines
• Averages a minimum 3 meals weekly through the Selection Committee process

Evaluate Customer Feedback

• Thoroughly understand how average customer cooks and strive to make meals as streamlined, quick, and easy as possible
• Analyze customer comments on meals from both menu runs and beta runs, and incorporate learnings into new recipes

Weekly Culinary Meetings

• Attend and participate in weekly culinary team meetings, including Performance Board, Team Check-ins, and Taster Pre-shift with opportunity to lead
• Attends and supports cross functional teams initiatives, new product lines, sampling ingredients, supply team check-ins

This position requires 0-10% travel. 

Qualifications

The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability needed for this role. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities.

• Completion of a two-year program such as an Associate degree
• Culinary degree preferred
• 10+ years experience working in a kitchen or other professional cooking environment. Able to work in a clean and organized manner.
• 2+ years prior recipe development experience. 
• Self-starter and highly motivated to make meals that an average person can successfully cook at home. 
• ServSafe or food handling certification preferred 
• Sense of teamwork and collaboration. Works well in group settings to move projects forward, provide constructive feedback when needed, and support the overall team workload
• Strong verbal communication skills
• Willing and able to receive feedback and implement suggestions
• Understanding of current nutrition, food and food industry trends.
• Must be able to taste and provide thorough feedback on every meal and ingredient sample test in the kitchen, including vegetarian, pork, chicken, steak, and seafood meals. 

More About Us

Perks and Benefits

• Candidates can experience Home Chef as a customer - enter promo code PEOPLE30 for $30 off your first order!
• Medical, dental, vision, life and disability insurance available
• Paid holidays, sick time and vacation time
• 401k program
• Flexible spending accounts for qualified medical, dependent care, parking, or transit expenses

How We Work Together

We are humble team players.
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