Website:
thewayback.co
Job details:
Barley was India's first grain. We're bringing it back.
The Way Back is building India's first instant high-protein barley breakfast. Our recipe is a traditional grain dish rebuilt for modern mornings: 20g protein, high in fibre, no refined sugar, and ready in 60 seconds with milk. We currently make it in three flavours: Rich Belgian Chocolate, Classic Italian Tiramisu, and Creamy Cappuccino.
We're a small, bootstrapped founding team. Nothing here comes from a big-company playbook. We're figuring out how to turn an ancient grain into a product people crave every morning, and we want a curious food scientist to figure it out with us.
What you'll actually do
Build new products from the ground up
- Take new SKUs from concept to benchtop prototype to pilot batch.
- Work on formulation: balance protein, fibre, sweetness, texture, and cost in a clean-label dry mix.
- Research new ingredients, functional add-ins, and category ideas beyond breakfast.
Experiment with flavour
- Run flavour trials with natural and nature-identical flavours, cocoa, coffee, and natural sweeteners.
- Solve real problems, such as masking protein off-notes, improving milk mixability, and getting a dessert-like taste without refined sugar.
- Set up and run sensory panels, then turn the feedback into formulation changes.
Make our current products better
- Improve texture, mouthfeel, dispersibility, and taste across the existing range.
- Help with shelf-life studies, moisture and stability checks, and packaging compatibility.
- Help keep our nutrition claims accurate so the product always delivers what the label promises.
Set up our R&D infrastructure from scratch
- Help design our in-house test kitchen or lab: equipment, workflows, and documentation.
- Create SOPs for batch trials, QA checks, and recording formulations.
- Work with our contract manufacturing partner on scale-up, from grams in a lab to kilos in a batch.
- Help build our food safety and FSSAI compliance processes from day one.
Who we're looking for- A student or recent graduate in Food Technology, Food Science, Nutrition, Dairy Technology, or a related field.
- Someone who wants to understand how food technology works in practice, beyond the textbook.
- Hands-on and experimental: you'd rather run ten trials than wait for the perfect one.
- Comfortable with basic lab work, careful note-keeping, and a spreadsheet or two.
- Bonus: experience with dry mixes, protein fortification, sensory evaluation, or FSSAI labelling.
Why this internship is different
- Real ownership. Your formulations can reach real customers' breakfast bowls.
- The full picture. You'll see ingredients, sourcing, costing, manufacturing, packaging, and compliance, all in one place.
- Direct access to the founders - no layers between you and decision-makers.
- A foundation you built. You'll help shape the lab and processes this brand grows on.
- A clear story for your career. Few people can say they helped relaunch a 10,000-year-old grain.
How to apply
Send your resume and a short note to sayhi@thewayback.co with the subject line "Food Scientist Intern [Your Name]". In your note, tell us about one food product you think could be made healthier, and how you'd do it.
Click on Apply to know more.
