White Castle Hiring for Research & Development Technician at Columbus, OH Full Time

We’re America’s first fast-food hamburger chain – with nearly a century of service to a nation of Cravers. But we’re not satisfied with an impressive past. We’ve got our eye on an even tastier future, and we want you to be part of it! White Castle is always looking for passionate, customer-crazy people to join our teams, so apply to start your White Castle career today!

At White Castle, we’re about more than just Sliders. We’re about making memories, and about maintaining our Values. We expect our team to demonstrate our values daily: to be Responsive, Customer Focused, Hungry, Healthy & Energetic, Humble and Accountable. Working at White Castle gets you behind-the-scenes intel on a pop culture staple with a cult-like following—being part of our 100-year legacy is truly a unique experience! Here’s your chance to help guide the team that keeps our Cravers coming back for more.

Benefits of working at White Castle include:
Paid vacation

Company Lease Vehicle

Medical, dental & life insurance

Weekly paychecks

401K & profit sharing plans

Free meals while working

Promote from within practice

And more!!

Can you say #dreamjob!?! If you are awesome and want to work for a company that will think so too, apply online!

Research & Development Technician

Home Office – Columbus, OH

Exempt Position

Basic Purpose

This position will be responsible for evaluating and recommending ingredients, products, consumer preparation methods, restaurant operational procedures, packaging, and equipment to test and ultimately launch for both divisions.

This will include setting and maintaining specifications, providing competitive and category analysis, utilizing consumer research tools, managing consumer sensory panels, planning and overseeing operational testing. This position will make recommendations plus support efforts of the Product Innovation Team in growing sales for the Retail and Restaurant Division through the R&D process of bringing successful products to market.

Essential Functions

Recommend, create, and assist with new product development for retail, restaurant, and manufacturing divisions.

Evaluate, test, and recommend product packaging and associated operational or consumer preparation procedures for retail and restaurant items.

Manage the R&D project processes and the accompanying documents, product folders, activity, and communications around each product, packaging, or procedure in the development pipeline as well as the projects/products that have moved into implementation phases.

Manage our physical innovation center/test kitchen and its associated inventory, equipment, and supplies, as well as coordinating with internal departments, and external business partners on facility functionality.

Monitor industry and category trends. Benchmark competitive products to identify potential unmet consumer needs and growth opportunities for White Castle restaurants and retail shopper categories.

Support continuous development and improvement of existing restaurant and retail products, packaging, and procedures to modify and optimize as consumer trends shift, supply chain varies, regulations change, and/or QA standards evolve.

Support other departments in executing product launches. This includes product photoshoots, QA/QC, product, and packaging specifications, etc.

REQUIREMENTS

• Requires a 2-year culinary or food science degree or related field, and prior food industry experience.
• Knowledge of food production, ingredients, recipe building, R&D kitchen equipment operating, and preparation methods.
• At least 3-5 years of foodservice development, consumer product goods (CPG) innovation, or food lab experience required.
• Preferably in an R&D capacity.
• Understanding of basic food safety, HAACP, and GMP.
• Ability to perform basic food costing.
• An understanding of the Stage-Gate development process & fundamental research methodologies.
• Ability to utilize Microsoft products for business, reporting, and communicating.