Product Developer

About the job

You will be part of a team of dedicated and highly skilled colleagues, working together towards ensuring the success of a key MENA Supply Chain site that is owned by Arla Foods. The Product Developer role will be directly reporting to the Senior Innovation Manager at Arla Bahrain. The ideal candidate is someone who is passionate about Dairy Product Development, with great analytical Skills. Most importantly, the candidate is someone who is a great team player with a high sense of ownership.

More specifically you will support the supply chain team to achieve the following:

Key Responsibilities:

• Understands commercial challenges and creates new commercial opportunities by turning concepts based on local consumer and shopper insights into new products.
• Supports cost/value engineering of new and existing products by working with local and global marketers, suppliers, supply chain and other stakeholders.
• Utilizes foundational knowledge of food and/or dairy science, ingredients, and recipe development to optimize product development.
• Applies expertise in food and dairy processing to develop and deliver new products, considering the impact on packaged goods and implementing them effectively across dairies/sites.
• Identifies and creates innovation opportunities aligned with consumer preferences, feasibility, and with strategic and financial viability for Arla.
• Significantly contributes to product development projects, ensuring smooth implementation and finalization of recipes, quality assurance, and legal compliance.
• Works closely with commercial teams in NPD projects, providing technical expertise and support.
• Plans, implements, evaluates, and documents experiments in the lab, pilot, and production scale.
• Runs troubleshooting of product quality issues and actively participates in pilot plant testing of new processes and products.
• Supports feasibility studies for supply chain optimization, including recipe finalization/optimization, cost savings, quality assurance, and legal assessment.
• Contributes actively to product and process knowledge, particularly regarding changes in production lines.
• Actively participates in consumer, competitor & product research including delivering prototypes, competitor benchmarking including sensory, chemical and physical analyses.
• Establishes and maintains networks internally and externally, developing knowledge, understanding, and relationships for future collaboration, including suppliers of raw materials and equipment as a way to develop and inspire self and others and deliver better products.
• Identifies opportunities for new NPD, cost reduction, and process improvement in the dairy category.
• Utilizes relevant digital tools for product development and recipe optimization and project documentation.

Level Definition:

• Executes operational plans and/or delivers projects with a direct impact on functional success.
• Challenges processes and practices identifying opportunities for continuous improvement.
• Responsible for achievement of operational targets or delivery of service standards within their own job area or function.
• Identifies and solves difficult and sometimes complex issues/problems without precedent and modifies, enhances and/or adapts established processes and work methods.
• Works with limited supervision, interacting with stakeholders and acts as important interface with other areas within the function or units.

Who are you?

You are passionate about supply chain, you are analytic and smart and always seeking to add value in your role. Most importantly, you demonstrate high professionalism, ownership and credibility in your work.

You are a bachelor’s degree graduate in a discipline such as engineering, Finance or a similar field, competent in SAP.

Furthermore, you are:

• Education at Diploma, Bachelor’s or Master’s level within food/dairy science and technology, or similar or applicable experience from the food or dairy industry.
• 5-6 years of product development experience, preferably in Processed Cheese or Dairy.
• 1-3 years in similar role in a medium – large organization
• FMCG experience (preferred)

Application and contact

Please apply as soon as possible as we will review applications and hold interviews on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

We have a purpose for Good

At Arla, we strive to unlock the highest potential in each other while working together to create a sustainable future of dairy. We call it Stronger People Stronger Planet and it is deeply anchored in our organization and founded on our commitment to increasing access to healthy dairy nutrition, inspiring good food habits, and improving the environment for future generations. In order to succeed we need to hire people with a sustainable mindset. Could this be you?