NA UFS Consumer Technical Insight Scientist

ABOUT UNILEVER:
With 3.4 billion people in over 190 countries using our products every day, Unilever is a business that makes a real impact on the world. Work on brands that are loved and improve the lives of our consumers and the communities around us. We are driven by our purpose: to make sustainable living commonplace, and it is our belief that doing business the right way drives superior performance. At the heart of what we do is our people – we believe that when our people work with purpose, we will create a better business and a better world.

At Unilever, your career will be a unique journey, grounded in our collaborative, and flexible working environment. Our organizational ambition centres around creating workplaces that foster equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging across all aspects of our business. We don’t believe in the ‘one size fits all’ approach and instead we will equip you with the tools you need to shape your own future.

ABOUT FOOD SOLUTIONS (UFS):
Act like a founder, be part of a winning team, accelerate your growth, stay ahead of the curve, enjoy the journey: JOIN UFS

Unilever Food Solutions (UFS) is the 2nd largest Business Unit of Unilever, is one of the 3 Power brands of the Food Business Group, and a global market leader in Food Service. We are an independent Global Business Unit that operates in over 76 countries, generating ~3euros Billions in Turnover and employing ~4000 employees. We have a unique B2B business model focused on serving chefs and our purpose is to free them to love what they do.

We at UFS have a bold and clear ambition and strategy in place to reach 5 euro billion by 2030 with accretive profitability, by being the best solution provider too our 5 million operators. We plan to do this via a product first focus on superiority, by becoming the leader in AI powered Customer experience and by nurturing a winning culture. We have had a history of delivering with excellence and resilient performance in the past few years. We also strive to stay 3 steps ahead in the industry. For example, our Future Menus Report identifies emerging culinary trends, making us a trendsetter for inspiring innovative solutions for chefs worldwide.

We have a culture of caring deeply not just for our business but also for our people. We foster an entrepreneurial culture built on speed, simplicity, trust and a deep hunger to grow. Our people thrive on their roles being empowered and end to end- across all functions. We also invest heavily in building future skills and leaders. Our people’s agenda of Accelerate-Grow-Thrive consistently helps us lead in employee engagement, with Univoice scores exceeding Unilever scores across all dimensions and being one of the most engaged teams of Unilever.

Here, you will continuously learn, unlearn and relearn, challenging yourself to accelerate your development in an end-to-end business and in end-to-end roles. If you’re dreaming of contributing to Unilever’s 2nd largest Business unit, a fast-growing business, where you’re empowered so you can play to win and thrive as part of One Team with One Goal, then come and join us!


JOB PURPOSE:
Unilever is the place where you can bring your purpose to life with the work that you do - creating a better business, better world and improving everyday living. If you are a food enthusiast and have a strong passion for developing, executing and driving consumer technical insight (CTI)/Product Research and sensory evaluation program, this role is perfect for you to drive your career passion. This position will include but not limited to leveraging global and regional market and product insight, science/technology facts to deliver the unmissable superiority in product, packaging and proposition. This role would include strong partnership with your cross functional team to deliver the brand’s program and business objectives.

WHO YOU ARE & WHAT YOU’LL DO
- You’re a born leader: Proactive self-direction with a high level of initiative and persistence and a hands-on approach to results delivery.

- You’re a dot connector: This position works in strong collaboration with boarder R&D teams. Marketing - Consumer Market Insight, Brand, Customer Development, Legal, etc.

- You’re a changemaker: Ability to identify and address emerging issues as well as set and manage priorities and continuously improve Consumer Insight Technical CTI (Product Research) process and practices.

- You love to win and have fun doing it: You have a passion for food and product quality and extremely operator/customer focused.

- You’re a storyteller: The position requires adapting consumer/technical information to communicate results with other cross-functional team members such as marketing, Customer development, nutrition as well as others.

- You’re a paradox navigator: The position requires application of technical knowledge some scientific methodologies to drive design of experiments for various projects.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:
A key responsibility in a strong Consumer Technical Insight (CTI) role is to serve as the connective thread between consumer (chef/operator) needs, technical expertise, and business strategy, working across US partners in marketing, CMI and R&D. This means:
- Designing and implementing robust sensory and consumer research that uncovers actionable insights, then translating those findings into clear recommendations for product development in superiority and new growth opportunities.
- Develop and execute consumer technical test plan including sensory or consumer product and packaging testing to identify targets for designing superior products and evaluation of their delivery.
- Define or contribute to the CI plan for innovation, strategic or competitive benchmarking exercises to ensure relevant key attributes are at the heart of design and evaluation.
- Analyze operator and sensory data to draw out big consumer insights and identify key measures for driving superior product designs and evaluation including Structure Team Assessments.
- Implement CTI operator/functionality/performance best practice, techniques and processes.
- Story telling – lead and co author strategic KBS (Knowledge Based Story) that lands superiority and support Superiority roadmap.
- Support claims strategy through conducting claims workshops, claims support testing, craft compelling knowledge-based selling (KBS) narrative by identifying the most effective ways to highlight and elevate product superiority in alignment with brand strategy.

WHAT YOU NEED TO SUCCEED:
- Keep the operator at the core of every initiative, ensuring their needs are perspectives guide the product development process.
- Display curiosity and enthusiasm for food and emerging dishes, diet, health trends.
- Partner closely with brand marketing. Consumer & Market insight (CMI) and the R&D– development team to define outstanding, compelling claims and KBS.
- Manage or support execution of relevant operator, sensory or claims testing; interpret results, identify key insights and efficiently cascade key findings/learnings.
- Create exciting technical communications, visuals and demos that bring technologies and innovations to life. Co create KBS, demos for sales team and other activations tools.
- Understand the needs and attitudes of operators we serve, to connect them with relevance and brand tone of voice in all aspects of claims and communications.
- Write research study brief and execute studies; work closely with internal functions and external vendors (3rd parties) to ensure execution with excellence.

- Preferred: Background in consumer insights, particularly within agency settings or external research consultancies

EXPERIENCES & QUALIFICATIONS:
- Must have at minimum a BS or MS degree in psychology, nutrition, sensory science, food science, physical science, marketing/market research or related scientific discipline.
- Minimum 3 years in Consumer/chef/operators/dining insights, sensory Science with experience in conducting sensory research, consumer qualitative, quantitative and claims research (in CPG with B2B is a plus).
- Minimum of 2 years of experience within a category R&D function, Knowledge of the category or other food-based business, Consumer Technical Insight functional and performance experience.
- Experience in B2B with chef, operators and dining experience and product functionality insight.
- Excellent communication skills (oral and written) to bring consumer(operator)/sensory insights to life for multi-functional audiences in a clear and engaging way.
- Strong planning, organizational and attention to details in execution of CTI research and roadmap.
- Ability to identify the needs of technical projects and create insight programs for delivery.
- Application of psychological principles to define operator insight research activities.
- Have statistical knowledge and ability to interpret data
- Analytical thinking with an ability to identify patterns within data
- Creative thinking to support the development of new ideas and how to showcase product superiority.
- Up to 25% travel required.

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At Unilever, inclusion is at the heart of everything we do. We welcome applicants from all walks of life and are committed to creating an environment where everyone can thrive/succeed. All applicants will receive fair and respectful consideration, and we actively support the growth and development of every employee.

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