R&D Chef - Ready to Heat

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 for Ready to Heat will work in the R&D kitchen(s) to conceive and create new recipes for the Ready to Heat (RTH) Home Chef offering that meet our nutritional, cost and ingredient specifications. 

Detailed Responsibilities

R&D New Meals

• Passionate culinarian with a great palette, sense of presentation, efficiencies and productivity
• Conceive accessible, creative new meal and compound ingredient recipes in the test kitchen that apply to cost, ingredient, caloric/nutritional, time, and operational  constraints
• Responsible for the creation of about 80 unique meals per quarter
• Collaborate with other chefs to improve and test each other’s dishes
• Take extensive and honest feedback every day on meal accessibility and flavors and incorporate into recipes
• Work with cross functional partners to expand and refine RTH pantry of ingredients with a focus on customer satisfaction and operational complexity
• Drive for higher customer ratings and satisfaction
• Respond to directives from Culinary, Marketing, NPD, and RTH teams to develop meals that will contribute to increased sales
• Use feedback from production teams to increase efficiency and and decrease operational complexity
• Ability to innovate ideas and implement them
• Creation of compound ingredients and assistance with commercialization

Evaluate Customer Feedback

• Thoroughly understand how average customer interacts with product and strive to make meals as accessible and delicious as possible
• Analyze customer comments on meals from menu runs and incorporate learnings into new recipes
• Integrate learnings from various data sets to improve meal performance

Meeting Participation

• Attend and participate in weekly Culinary and RTH team meetings including Performance Board, Team Check-ins, RTH Draft, Weekly Culinary/Production Debrief, etc.
• Visit at least one production facility quarterly to share prescribed training and to work with the local team

This position requires at least 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 Arts or similar
• 5+ years experience working in a kitchen or other professional cooking environment. Able to work in a clean and organized manner.
• Culinary degree preferred.
• 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!