Senior Product Development Leader in Saint Louis, Missouri at Deli Star Corporation
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Deli Star Corporation
Saint Louis, Missouri, 63103, United States
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Job Description
Location: St. Louis, MODepartment: DESIGN, Supply Chain Engineering, CommercializationReports to: Director, Supply Chain Engineer About Deli Star: Who We Are
Deli Star is a next-generation food manufacturing company with a clear purpose: to nourish life through protein with integrity. We specialize in fresh, sous vide cooked proteins and patented food-safety technologies, serving some of the most trusted brands, and culinary teams across the United States. Our mission is ambitious: to build a world-class fresh sous vide system. We are working towards a future in which safe, nutritious, high-quality protein is fresh and accessible to more people.
Deli Star is not a typical food manufacturer. We combine the scientific rigor, quality standards and operational discipline required in food manufacturing with the energy, creativity and entrepreneurial mindset of a growth company. With a team of 150 employees and growing, we are large enough to make a meaningful impact while remaining small enough for talented people to influence how the company evolves.
We are proud of our strong customer partnerships, our rapid growth and our long-term commitment to building an innovative, technology-enabled manufacturing platform.
Our people-first culture is grounded in three core values: Trust, Resilience, and Creativity.
We believe the future belongs to companies that can combine quality, innovation and operational excellence at scale.
The OpportunityHelp bring the future of fresh food into commercial production. Deli Star is building a world-class Fresh Sous Vide™ system to make safe, nutritious, high-quality protein fresh and accessible. Our Fresh Sous Vide process creates opportunities across proteins, entrées, sauces, sides, and complete prepared meals. We are looking for a technical leader who can turn promising product designs into repeatable manufacturing results.
You will combine deep meat and protein processing expertise, experimental rigor, and hands-on plant leadership to guide development trials and initial manufacturing scale-up. Working with Product & Process Design, Manufacturing, Food Safety & Quality, and the broader DESIGN team, you will test process assumptions, diagnose performance, define critical requirements, and establish evidence that products can be made consistently at commercial scale.
This is a hands-on role with meaningful influence. Your work will help bring new Fresh Sous Vide applications, REVEL products, and customer programs into reliable production across business-to-business, retail, and direct-to-consumer channels.
Our DESIGN TeamDESIGN connects food science and product design with technical expertise, Supply Chain, including Commercialization, Purchasing and Logistics, and Technology systems.
The Senior Product Development Leader focuses on commercializing the design, translating product and process intent into repeatable manufacturing through disciplined trials, technical scale-up, and effective handoff to Manufacturing. The adjacent Senior Product Designer role owns formulation, bench design, and technical intent.
Key Responsibilities
1. Lead Commercialization & Scale-Up
Deli Star is a next-generation food manufacturing company with a clear purpose: to nourish life through protein with integrity. We specialize in fresh, sous vide cooked proteins and patented food-safety technologies, serving some of the most trusted brands, and culinary teams across the United States. Our mission is ambitious: to build a world-class fresh sous vide system. We are working towards a future in which safe, nutritious, high-quality protein is fresh and accessible to more people.
Deli Star is not a typical food manufacturer. We combine the scientific rigor, quality standards and operational discipline required in food manufacturing with the energy, creativity and entrepreneurial mindset of a growth company. With a team of 150 employees and growing, we are large enough to make a meaningful impact while remaining small enough for talented people to influence how the company evolves.
We are proud of our strong customer partnerships, our rapid growth and our long-term commitment to building an innovative, technology-enabled manufacturing platform.
Our people-first culture is grounded in three core values: Trust, Resilience, and Creativity.
We believe the future belongs to companies that can combine quality, innovation and operational excellence at scale.
The OpportunityHelp bring the future of fresh food into commercial production. Deli Star is building a world-class Fresh Sous Vide™ system to make safe, nutritious, high-quality protein fresh and accessible. Our Fresh Sous Vide process creates opportunities across proteins, entrées, sauces, sides, and complete prepared meals. We are looking for a technical leader who can turn promising product designs into repeatable manufacturing results.
You will combine deep meat and protein processing expertise, experimental rigor, and hands-on plant leadership to guide development trials and initial manufacturing scale-up. Working with Product & Process Design, Manufacturing, Food Safety & Quality, and the broader DESIGN team, you will test process assumptions, diagnose performance, define critical requirements, and establish evidence that products can be made consistently at commercial scale.
This is a hands-on role with meaningful influence. Your work will help bring new Fresh Sous Vide applications, REVEL products, and customer programs into reliable production across business-to-business, retail, and direct-to-consumer channels.
Our DESIGN TeamDESIGN connects food science and product design with technical expertise, Supply Chain, including Commercialization, Purchasing and Logistics, and Technology systems.
The Senior Product Development Leader focuses on commercializing the design, translating product and process intent into repeatable manufacturing through disciplined trials, technical scale-up, and effective handoff to Manufacturing. The adjacent Senior Product Designer role owns formulation, bench design, and technical intent.
Key Responsibilities
1. Lead Commercialization & Scale-Up
- Lead development trials and initial plant-scale production trials for core product improvements and strategic innovation programs.Translate approved product and process designs into scalable manufacturing methods for proteins and prepared foods.Apply deep expertise in meat science, protein functionality, ingredient interactions, thermal processing, equipment, yield, and finished-product performance.Design and lead disciplined trials with clear objectives, variables, controls, success criteria, sampling plans, and data requirements.Provide hands-on technical leadership during trials, diagnose unexpected results, and use structured experimentation to resolve scale-up risks.Document results and recommend go, hold, revise, or repeat based on evidence, following established development approvals and Food Safety & Quality requirements.Partner with Product & Process Design when scale-up evidence indicates the formulation or original technical intent needs reconsideration.
2. Establish Manufacturing & Commercial Readiness
- Define technical material requirements, specifications, quantities, timing needs, and qualification criteria; collaborate with Purchasing on readiness and evaluation of alternatives.Engage Manufacturing early to assess equipment capability, process fit, manufacturability, production constraints, and expected performance.Define and document critical product and process parameters, technical findings, operating requirements, and unresolved risks.Understand cost-of-goods-sold (COGS) drivers and provide technical inputs on formulation, material use, yield, waste, and processing performance; identify practical improvement opportunities.Lead the technical handoff to Manufacturing for subsequent production scale-up , securing clear acceptance of requirements, evidence, and open issues.Provide targeted startup support, with ongoing production troubleshooting led by Manufacturing.
3. Lead Pilot Plant & Cross-Functional Execution
- Lead, coach, and develop the Commercialization team, including Pilot Plant Manager and other scale-up technicians.Ensure the Pilot Plant is safe, sanitary, maintained, equipped, organized, operational, and ready for development work.Establish expectations for facility readiness, operating practices, documentation, and Pilot Plant capability, ensuring adherence to applicable Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) plans and Food Safety & Quality requirements.Coordinate Pilot Plant resources with the Pilot Plant Manager and Product Management in the GROW functional area of the business for early-stage customer-led developmentCoordinate trial resources and communicate technical plans, findings, risks, and decisions across Product & Process Design, Supply Chain Engineering, Purchasing, Manufacturing, Food Safety & Quality, Product Management, and Finance.Build Pilot Plant capability as development needs and the organization evolve.
Ownership and CollaborationThis role owns technical commercialization, development and initial scale-up trial leadership, manufacturing-readiness evidence, and technical transfer to Manufacturing. The role also leads the Pilot Plant Manager and maintains Pilot Plant operational readiness.
You will work closely with:
- Product & Process Design within DESIGN which owns product science, formulation, bench design, and technical intent.Sales, Marketing, and Product Management within GROW, which leads customer relationships, market opportunities, initial bench research, and customer requirements.Purchasing and Logistics, which support material and supply requirements for development and scale-up.Manufacturing and Engineering, which participate in development and lead subsequent production scale-up and ongoing execution.Food Safety & Quality, which provide required safety and quality review, validation, and approval.Finance, which partners on costing and commercial decision-making.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Food Science, Meat Science, Animal Science, Food Engineering or a related discipline preferred; equivalent relevant industry experience may be considered.Seven or more years of relevant food product development, process development, or commercialization experience, including independent technical leadership.Significant hands-on meat and protein processing experience and demonstrated plant-scale commercialization success.Strong understanding of protein functionality, thermal processing, manufacturing equipment, process variability, and refrigerated food quality.Experience planning and leading plant trials, using structured experiments, data, and sound technical documentation to make decisions.Working knowledge of HACCP and experience applying food safety and quality requirements in development and manufacturing environments.Ability to assess yield, material utilization, processing performance, and their effects on COGS.Ability to communicate technical recommendations, lead across functions, and develop people.
- Sous vide, cooked or ready-to-eat proteins, and refrigerated prepared foods.Meals, entrées, sauces, sides, or integrated meal components.Vacuum packaging, flexible films, forming and sealing systems, and product-package interactions.Specifications, sensory evaluation, shelf-life programs, statistical analysis, and experimental design.
What Success Looks LikeYou turn promising product designs into repeatable commercial manufacturing. Your trials answer the right technical questions, expose and resolve scale-up risks, and generate clear evidence for decisions. Manufacturing receives an effective technical handoff, and the Pilot Plant remains capable and ready to support development. You consistently ask: What are we trying to prove? What variables matter? What evidence do we need? What did the data tell us? Are we ready to move forward?
We value curiosity, thoughtful challenge, careful execution and the willingness to keep improving.
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Job Location
Saint Louis, Missouri, 63103, United States