New Product Development Innovation Chef

Yum! Brands
Johannesburg
Workplace: HybridFull timeFunction: Hospitality & Food ServiceEducation: bachelorsSkills: ["Sensory judgement","Structured experimentation","Critical thinking","Root-cause problem solving","Planning","Project management","Stakeholder influence","Communication","Presentation","Resilience","Attention to detail"]

Lead end-to-end development and renovation of consumer-led KFC Africa food and beverage products, translating briefs into new menu concepts. Build and maintain an innovation pipeline, create prototypes and specifications, and run tastings, leadership reviews, and consumer research. Validate ingredients, yields, portioning, hold-times, and shelf-life, partner on operational testing, and govern launch commercialization through supplier trials, procedures, CSLs, and compliance with restricted ingredients, allergens, nutrition, and food-safety requirements. Coordinate cross-functional delivery to launch on time.

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Yum! Brands
Yum! Brands
23 hours ago

New Product Development Innovation Chef

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Source: Company careers pageValidated by: Fursa AI
Last checked: 14 hours agoStatus: Live

Job Summary

Lead end-to-end development and renovation of consumer-led KFC Africa food and beverage products, translating briefs into new menu concepts. Build and maintain an innovation pipeline, create prototypes and specifications, and run tastings, leadership reviews, and consumer research. Validate ingredients, yields, portioning, hold-times, and shelf-life, partner on operational testing, and govern launch commercialization through supplier trials, procedures, CSLs, and compliance with restricted ingredients, allergens, nutrition, and food-safety requirements. Coordinate cross-functional delivery to launch on time.
Location: Johannesburg
Workplace: Hybrid
Employment Type: Full time
Job Function: Hospitality & Food Service
Seniority: Mid level

Key Responsibilities

  • •Lead consumer-led product innovation by translating brand, consumer and commercial briefs into new food and beverage concepts.
  • •Build and maintain an innovation and renovation pipeline aligned to strategic growth priorities, developing prototypes, recipes, specifications and product builds.
  • •Validate products and restaurant execution by completing ingredient, yield, portioning, build, hold-time and shelf-life validations and partnering on operational validations.
  • •Commercialize and govern product launches through indicative bills of materials, maintaining product procedures and CSLs, reviewing specifications, and ensuring compliance with restricted ingredients, allergens, nutrition, food-safety requirements and legislation.
  • •Optimize the existing portfolio and lead cross-functional delivery by coordinating test-kitchen builds with suppliers and partners across Marketing, Operations, Supply Chain, Quality, Training, and Finance.
Travel: Low travel

Key Requirements

  • •Minimum Food Technology, Food Science or Culinary Arts diploma.
  • •Bachelor’s degree in Food Science, Food Technology, Culinary Innovation or a related discipline is preferred.
  • •Six to eight years’ product development experience in the food sector, preferably within QSR, FMCG, food retail or food service.
  • •Demonstrated experience leading products from concept and bench development through validation, scale-up, market test and launch.
  • •Practical exposure to restaurant, test-kitchen and manufacturing environments, working with ingredient and packaging suppliers in cross-functional teams.
Experience:Food sectorQSRFMCGFood retailFood service
Education:Bachelor's
Skills:Sensory judgementStructured experimentationCritical thinkingRoot-cause problem solvingPlanningProject managementStakeholder influenceCommunicationPresentationResilienceAttention to detail

Company Brief

Yum! Brands
Yum! Brands is a global quick-service restaurant company that develops, franchises and operates KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and Habit Burger & Grill, serving tens of thousands of restaurants across more than 150 countries with digital and franchise-led growth strategies.
Industry: Restaurants & Food Service
Company Size: Enterprise (1,001+ employees)
Revenue: USD 1B+
Growth: Public Company
Valuation: Public Company (Market Cap in USD)
Funding: IPO / Publicly Listed
Headquarters: Louisville, United States
Founded: 1997
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Glassdoor: 3.7
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