Are you ready to design the future of taste?
IFF is a global leader in flavors, fragrances, and health & biosciences. We deliver sustainable innovations that elevate everyday products.
Taste: Crafting unique, technology-enabled flavor designs that define the identity of food and beverage brands, shape trends in flavor creation, and fuel market success.
We are looking for a Senior Culinary Designer to join our Hilversum lab team in a full-time position. This role is ideal for someone who enjoys hands-on work in the lab, has experience with culinary applications and processing technologies, and can translate customer needs into relevant IFF solutions — and translate IFF capabilities back into clear, practical value for customers.
The position requires a blend of application know-how, flavor understanding, technical curiosity, and practical ownership of lab capabilities. The right candidate will be comfortable working with pilot-scale equipment, enabling technology validation, contributing to portfolio work, and helping turn ideas into customer-ready solutions.
Equally important, we are looking for a true team player: someone who collaborates openly, supports colleagues, shares knowledge, takes responsibility, and helps strengthen the broader Culinary team. This is a critical role for maintaining and building our technical capabilities, customer support, and lab-based innovation in Culinary EAME.
Where You’ll Make a Difference
- Build strong partnerships with key regional and global customers, delivering application solutions that create value and drive business growth.
- Identify and translate successful category innovations and wins from other regions into opportunities for local customers.
- Stay ahead of market trends, consumer insights, and emerging technologies to develop relevant and differentiated solutions.
- Lead customer engagements, including visits to the Hilversum Creative Center, showcasing IFF's capabilities and expertise.
- Deliver compelling technical and commercial presentations that highlight flavor technologies, innovations, and category insights.
- Provide technical leadership for customer projects, ensuring high-quality application development and timely resolution of application-related challenges.
- Strengthen IFF’s market presence by executing category growth initiatives and creating proactive concepts that inspire customers.
- Collaborate across Creative Centers, Application teams, Flavorists, Sales, Marketing, and R&D to share knowledge and accelerate innovation.
- Contribute to a high-performing team culture by mentoring junior talent, fostering capability development, and continuously improving processes and ways of working.
What Makes You the Right Fit
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Food Science, Chemistry, Biochemistry, or a related scientific discipline.
- 5-10 years of experience in the food, ingredient, or flavor industry, including at least 5 years within the savory/ culinary category.
- Proven experience developing and commercializing products, particularly in soups, sauces, condiments (including bouillon and cubes), and/or wet sauces.
- Demonstrated ability to work effectively in cross-functional teams and manage multiple priorities in a dynamic environment.
- Strong organizational and time management skills, with the ability to lead projects from concept through commercialization.
- Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence and collaborate across functions and with customers.
- Collaborative, adaptable, and proactive approach, combined with the potential to grow into a senior technical leadership role.
- Professional presentation and customer-facing skills, with confidence presenting technical concepts to diverse audiences. Willingness to travel approximately 10-20% of the time
- Fluent in English and able to successfully complete IFF's internal sensory and discriminative organoleptic skills assessment.
How Would You Stand Out?
- Experience in project management and leading complex development projects within a commercial environment.
- Knowledge of food safety, quality, and food regulations relevant to the savory category.
- Expertise in functional ingredients such as proteins, hydrocolloids, fermentation, dairy, or related food science disciplines.
Why Choose Us?
- 8% holiday allowance and a competitive annual bonus scheme (AIP) & Long-Term Incentive Plan (LTIP) for eligible roles
- Individual Choice Budget (IKB), which can be used flexibly (e.g., additional vacation days or monthly payout)
- 25 vacation days plus additional ADV days
- Commuting allowance (€0.23/km, up to 72 km one way) or full reimbursement of public transport (2nd class)
- Competitive pension scheme, company-paid disability insurance and enhanced parental leave
- Access to an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) providing confidential wellbeing, financial, and personal support, along with employee resource groups and year-round activities such as workshops, sports events, volunteering, and social gatherings.
We are a global leader in taste, scent, and nutrition, offering our customers a broader range of natural solutions and accelerating our growth strategy. At IFF, we believe that your uniqueness unleashes our potential. We value the diverse mosaic of the ethnicity, national origin, race, age, sex, or veteran status. We strive for an inclusive workplace that allows each of our colleagues to bring their authentic self to work regardless of their religion, gender identity & expression, sexual orientation, or disability.
Visit IFF.com/careers/workplace-diversity-and-inclusion to learn more
