Westland Milk Products Looking for Innovation Project Manager – Dairy Products NPD – 14 Month Fixed-Term at Hokitika, West Coast, New Zealand Full Time

From the wildest places come the purest ingredients. Westland Milk Products, born on the beautifully raw West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island enjoys an excellent international reputation and embodies the West Coast spirit in all that it does. It’s taken some good old-fashioned hard work to get where we are, and our committed team are a huge part of our ongoing success. We process over 700 million litres of milk a year and produce a wide range of consumer and foodservice products, and dairy ingredients.

The Opportunity

Based in Hokitika and reporting to the GM Innovation, we’re looking for an experienced and passionate Innovation Project Manager to cover a 14month fixed term period of parental leave. The Innovation Project Manager will manage the processes and activities associated with the delivery of Innovation projects throughout the product life cycle from concept to commercialisation. This will involve collective ownership of projects to ensure accurate assessment of appropriate product, process and packaging capability and capacity to support successful commercialisation.

Working closely with the Sales and Marketing teams to ascertain customer needs and help translate these into innovation deliverables, the Innovation Project Manager will also link in with specialists within the Quality team to provide support for regulatory, formulation& quality aspects of Innovation activity and New Product development (NPD). The Innovation Project Manager will be responsible for effective and efficient project management, encompassing all relevant activities associated with small and medium sized innovation projects, including developing and leading trials and providing appropriate technical insights and support across the business as required.

Our Successful Applicant Will Ideally Possess

• Minimum Bachelor Degree in Food Technology / Process Engineering / Science, or equivalent
• Sound knowledge of general food technology and food processing, especially relating to dairy products (Milk Powder, Butter, Milk Proteins, UHT milks and UHT Creams, Bioactives, Ingredients and Packaging materials)
• Project management experience
• Minimum 2-3 years’ Dairy Industry experience is preferable
• Good communication skills and the ability to work cross functionally to problem solve
• Good record keeping, documentation and data analysis skills
• Experience with Microsoft Office, database software systems
• Knowledge of Dairy products manufacture and the use of Dairy products in industrial and consumer usage applications
• Knowledge of food packaging and environmental/handling (supply chain) effects on product quality
• Knowledge of international regulations concerning dairy products

This is a fantastic opportunity to join a company that takes pride and passion in everything they do and help contribute to the development and delivery of exciting new product innovations. We will offer a competitive salary, health and other insurances, and a workplace you are proud to say you are a part of!!! Please see the accompanying position description (available on our Westland Careers page westlandcareers.co.nz) for further information.

APPLY NOW!!!

Applications will close on Sunday 24th September 2023. To apply for this vacancy, you MUST possess current eligibility to work in New Zealand.