Open Secret - New Product Development Manager - Food Category/Innovation Manager - Food Category

New Product Development Manager - Food Category / Innovation Manager - Food Category

About Open Secret :

Open Secret is a brand with a vision to make every Indian family snack better. Powered by a strong operating team of strategists and marketers from Harvard Business School, IIM, and IIT with 40+ years of collective FMCG experience and backed by the strongest set of mentors.

The goal is to become the most preferred snacking brand for families by un-junking their favourite snacks. Open Secret is currently available through their website at https://opensecret.in, multiple ecommerce platforms, and across offline stores Pan India where they sell their entire range of un-junked snacks including; Nutty Cookies, Nutty Chips, Flavoured Nuts, Nutty Shake Mixes and Nutty Spreads.

About the CEO and Co-Founder :

Ahana Gautam is an experienced operator with a passion to build and grow the biggest consumer brands in India. She has a B.Tech from IIT Bombay and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She started her career at P&G where she worked across multiple functions - supply chain, finance and marketing. Ahana grew her passion for food brands at General Mills in the US where she launched natural and organic products.

About the job : The NPD Manager develops, maintains, and updates the new product development process, initiates and continues the process to ensure a group of new concepts are available to be introduced. Collaborate and work with various teams for successful launch.

Key Responsibilities :

- The job role involves in managing the Product Development / Product Compliance / Quality Assurance.

- Development of new products through innovation and market research. Work with team to ensure that the new product made and manufactured in a cost-effective manner

- Project management to fulfil business driven goal in coordination with cross functional teams

- Optimise product formulations to improve performance and costs in collaboration with production and process teams

- Explore and develop new methods & materials to improve the quality of existing products

- Product Compliance as per Indian Food standards

- Conduct third-party testing of products as per Indian standard in regular intervals

- Planning & executing objective based product trials

- Ensuring trials are taken in disciplined manner

- Work with R&D consultants to execute the product brief till commercialization

- Work closely with vendors and maintain the integrity of procurement planner & schedule

- Nutritional profiling the products at ideation & trial stage

- Managing cross functional projects, timeline planning, organising and executing projects involving multiple stakeholders to enable launch of new products, accessories

- Ability to define processes, prioritise projects and align with multiple stakeholders towards overall business objectives

Experience Required :

- Minimum 5 Years experience in an FMCG / food processing unit, with specific knowledge on food safety standards

- Strong written and verbal communication skills

- Engineering and design knowledge

- Knowledge of the prototype design process

- Problem-solving skills

- Attention to detail

- Highly innovative