How We Placed a Senior R&D Chef Role in 90 Days

Author: Gus Bageanis

After a period of significant growth, a multi-site protein processor began expanding its culinary innovation function. With a customer base that spans QSR, fast casual, fine dining, and grocery, innovation efforts were complex and required attention to a range of variables. As such, key to this expansion initiative was the creation of a Senior R&D Chef Role, which Alpha Executive Search filled in 90 days.

Challenge: Filling a newly created role with high expectations

New product development in protein manufacturing has two sides: the test kitchen where ideas get built, and the plant where those ideas (ideally) come to fruition and scale. Leaders in this function must be able to function confidently in both environments, both to lead teams effectively and sell customers on the various products being developed.

As such, our client had a specific list of requirements for this new Senior R&D Chef:

• Formal culinary training and years of restaurant experience; this person should have their restaurant years behind them and be fully transitioned into manufacturing
• Extensive experience with developing protein products QSR, fast casual, fine dining, and grocery
• Background in taking new product development from concept through commercialization
• A developed executive presence that would enable them to lead customer-facing ideation sessions, product reviews, and innovation presentations

Finding a person who met all these criteria was, understandably, challenging. The client had posted the role publicly and been displeased with the applications they received. This led them to engage Alpha Executive Search, and we quickly leveraged our extensive food & beverage manufacturing recruitment experience to fill the role.

Solution: Tailoring the search to a detailed, specific profile

Soon upon beginning the search, we noticed a problem: the compensation range the client offered sat well below what we have seen as reasonable for similar roles. Changing that figure to a number that reflected what we see in the market immediately put the client in a stronger position to attract high-quality talent.

As we conducted the search, we noticed we had a few strong candidates already in our network. One in particular stood out. But there was a slight problem: this person had no meat processing experience. Instead, he came from the flavor industry. On their own, the client would have likely screened this person out. We felt so strongly about him, however, that we pushed back on the client’s requirements and advocated for him. His understanding of both meat applications and flavor systems plus his experience in restaurants and manufacturing, we believed, would be an asset to the client’s long-term expansion initiatives.

Additionally, this person exemplified the intangible attributes the client demanded: low ego, values alignment, and the ability to work in a newly created seat within an established culinary team. Eventually, we persuaded the client, and they ended up making the hire within 90 days of engaging us.

It is also worth noting that the process was far from a straight line. A client-side medical leave paused on-site interviews, and regional travel constraints forced us to stagger finalist visits. We maintained communication with every candidate, keeping the pipeline warm and ensuring the finalist was still available when the client was ready to make an offer.

Outcome: Stronger leadership for culinary innovation & growth

With a Senior R&D Chef owning the culinary innovation pipeline from end to end, the client is now making tangible progress in their product research, experimentation, productization, plant trials, and scale up. At the same time, this new leader has already begun leading customer ideation sessions and presentations, answering questions at both strategic and technical levels. Most importantly, concepts have someone to pressure-test them earlier in the process, avoiding lost time and money.

This level of leadership happened because Alpha Executive Search went deeper than the surface-level requirements, understood the strategic outcome the client wanted to achieve with the role, and suggested an alternative that drove the outcome, even if it was not 100% aligned on paper. As such, the client ended up with a stronger hire than the profile they originally wrote would have produced.

Alpha recruits R&D and culinary leadership for food and beverage manufacturers. To learn more about how we can help you, reach out to us today.