R&D SPIRITS TECHNICAL MANAGER M/F

Company Description

As a global key player in yeasts and fermentation, Lesaffre designs, manufactures and markets innovative solutions for Baking, Food taste & pleasure, Health care and Biotechnology.
Family group born in northern France in 1853, now a multi-national and a multicultural company, Lesaffre is committed to working with confidence to better nourish and protect the planet.
In close collaboration with its clients and partners, Lesaffre employs 11 000 people in nearly 80 subsidiaries based in +50 countries.
Lesaffre achieves a turnover of 2.7 billion euros.

Fermentis works with everyone in the world of beer, wine, spirits and other fermented beverages. Its range of products and services covers almost all professional requirements: from safeguarding production to expressing sensory characteristics. 

Business Unit of Lesaffre, global key player in fermentation and yeasts, Fermentis builds solutions and results upon its talented experts, visionary R&D program, industrial expertise which meets the highest international quality standards and a strong and coherent marketing and communication strategy.

Its mission? Become the obvious choice for brewers, winemakers and all producers of fermented beverages, helping them express their inventiveness and creativity. 

Job Description

In order to support our strong growth and in line with the Fermentis strategic plan, we are strengthening our Fermentis R&D team and are recruiting a technical manager specialized in fermentation in the field of the spirits, all pure fermentable materials and/or mixtures. This position reports to the Technical Manager, Spirits & Speciality Beverages

In this context, you will be responsible for:

• Projects involving the development and characterization of new products and fermentation solutions for spirits and their budget in external (universities, institutes, etc.) and internal (Corporate R&D, etc.) links,
• Monitoring the existing range of products for spirits to assess their suitability for the market and the budget associated with their characterization/permanence/development... In this respect, you will participate in the preparation of the annual R&D action plan and in the preparation of the overall R&D budget, and in the drafting of promotional documents (technical data sheets, arguments, presentations, etc.),
• Ensuring the relevance of application tests,
• Drawing up specifications for products intended for the production of spirits,
• Ensuring that Fermentis products meet regulatory requirements,
• Ensuring competitive analysis and technological monitoring in the production of spirits
• Setting up regular cross-functional communication (marketing, regulatory, supply chain, etc.) on the progress of your projects,
• Producing technical presentations and publications for Fermentis in your field of expertise,
• Representing Fermentis in the technical world (symposiums, congresses, conferences),
• Maintaining and developing your academic network (research centers, universities, colleges, etc.),
• Providing your expertise to Technical Sales Support Managers, Regional Sales Managers, etc., as well as to all Fermentis teams,

Finally, you may be required to supervise people (trainees, fixed-term contracts, permanent contracts).

Qualifications

You are a qualified agri-food engineer or equivalent, and you master the fundamentals of fermentation and distillation processes with in-depth knowledge of fermentable materials and their production processes.

You have at least 10 years experiences in the field of spirits (fermentation, distillation, in production or R&D (pilot...),.

You also have a keen interest in the manufacture of fermented drinks in their entirety (beer, wine, cider, etc.).

You have a real commercial and marketing mindset, while also demonstrating a perfect command of the innovation process and project management. Collaborative tools are part of your daily routine (0365, Sharepoint, Teams, etc.).

You are able to interact with people, are culturally open and are a good listener. You are also rigorous, analytical, able to summarize and tenacious.

You have a taste for challenge and a strong ability to convince or pass on your knowledge.

You have a sense of the field and of teamwork, and you know how to work independently to make progress on your projects.

As you can work in all the countries where Fermentis is developing its activities, your fluency in English is a prerequisite; fluency in Spanish is a plus.

Frequent travel abroad (up to 50%) is expected. 

Additional Information

This position is open to people with disabilities.