R&D Food Science Jobs at Isha LIFE
Looking for exciting R&D Food Science Jobs in India’s rapidly growing health food industry? Isha LIFE Jobs has announced an excellent opportunity for the position of Research and Development Specialist – Food Innovation in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. If you have expertise in Food Technology, Food Science, product formulation, or new product development, this role offers the chance to work on innovative clean-label foods while advancing your career in Life Science Jobs. Explore the complete job details, eligibility, responsibilities, and application information below.
About Isha LIFE
Isha LIFE is the wellness and lifestyle initiative inspired by Sadhguru and the Isha Foundation, offering a wide range of natural foods, health products, and wellness solutions. The organization focuses on developing nutritious, clean-label, and sustainable food products that promote holistic well-being. Through continuous innovation in food science, product development, and quality assurance, Isha LIFE Jobs provide exciting career opportunities for professionals seeking impactful Life Science Jobs in food research, health foods, and product innovation.
Job Details
- Job Title: Research And Development Specialist
- Location: Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India
Position Overview
The Research and Development Specialist – Food Innovation is responsible for developing, optimizing, and commercializing innovative food products across multiple product categories. The role involves end-to-end product development, from formulation and laboratory trials to pilot-scale validation and commercial production, while ensuring compliance with clean-label principles, food safety regulations, and quality standards. The specialist collaborates with cross-functional teams, suppliers, contract manufacturers, and external laboratories to successfully deliver market-ready products.
Key Responsibilities
- Leads formulation development and optimization across a diverse portfolio of food products, including energy bars, porridge and dosa mixes, trail mixes, honey variants, A2 ghee, traditional sweets (ladoos), snacks, chocolates, and Ready-to-Drink (RTD) and Ready-to-Eat (RTE) products.
- Designs, conducts, and documents laboratory and pilot-scale product development trials for products such as date-sweetened cookies, herbal teas, amla-, ginger-, and creamed honey, ash gourd powder, seed crackers, instant sprouted RTE products, ragi-cacao RTD beverages, single-origin chocolates, and instant sundal.
- Coordinates with contract manufacturers (co-packers), ingredient suppliers, incubation centers, and testing laboratories to ensure timely product development, sample delivery, and process alignment.
- Plans, conducts, and evaluates sensory studies using internal sensory panels and consumer trials, translating feedback into formulation and process improvements.
- Ensures products meet clean-label requirements, FSSAI regulations, quality standards, and shelf-life expectations.
- Prepares commercial-ready product documentation, including formulation sheets, manufacturing process flows, trial reports, and technical dossiers.
- Travels frequently to manufacturing plants, co-packing facilities, and farms to support product trials, process commissioning, troubleshooting, and commercialization activities.
Required Technical Skills
- Hands-on experience in two to three food product categories, such as bakery products, snacks, traditional food mixes, confectionery, beverages, health foods, or dairy products.
- Strong knowledge of food science principles, including cereals, millets, fats, sugars and alternative sweeteners, nuts, seeds, herbs, and functional food ingredients.
- Practical understanding of food processing operations, including mixing, roasting, extrusion, baking, milling, dehydration, and filling.
- Experience in designing laboratory experiments and scaling formulations from laboratory to pilot and commercial production.
- Ability to perform and interpret basic analytical tests, including moisture analysis, fat estimation, and microbiological evaluation.
- Knowledge of clean-label formulation strategies and the development of stable Ready-to-Eat (RTE), Ready-to-Serve (RTS), and Ready-to-Drink (RTD) food products.
- Familiarity with sensory evaluation techniques, including hedonic testing, triangle tests, benchmarking, and consumer acceptance studies.
- Proficiency in technical documentation, spreadsheet management, and product development reporting.
- Working knowledge of FSSAI regulations, food safety standards, and regulatory compliance requirements.
Core Competencies
- Product formulation and innovation.
- Food processing and scale-up expertise.
- Experimental design and analytical problem-solving.
- Sensory evaluation and consumer insights.
- Regulatory compliance and quality assurance.
- Cross-functional collaboration and stakeholder management.
- Strong organizational, documentation, and project management skills.
- Ability to manage multiple projects while meeting development timelines.
- Adaptability and willingness to travel for product development and commercialization activities.
