DEMOLISH
Website:
demolishfoods.com
Company:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/demolishindustries
Industries: Food and Beverage Manufacturing
Job details:
About Us
Demolish Foods is reinventing meat for a planet-positive future. We believe people should not have to choose between the food they love, the health of the planet, and a more humane way of producing it. We are building a team of people who are genuinely motivated by that ambition.
We are developing plant-based whole-cut meat products across multiple species and cut formats, designed to deliver a compelling eating experience while reducing the environmental footprint and animal-welfare costs of conventional meat. Backed by investors with deep manufacturing expertise, we have commissioned our pilot line in Bangalore and are now scaling toward commercial launch.
Know more: https://www.demolishfoods.com/
Role Summary
We are looking for a Director, Product Development to lead hands-on product development and R&D execution at Demolish Foods. This role will translate product goals into technical workstreams, experiments, material choices, evaluation methods, documentation systems, and scale-up pathways.
The ideal candidate is a strong first-principles thinker with a deep understanding of materials, structure-property relationships, experimental design, and practical product development. Prior food science experience is not required. What matters most is the ability to break down complex technical problems, reason from fundamentals, design decisive experiments, work closely with the team on execution, and guide product development toward repeatable outcomes.
This role is responsible for making products work technically and operationally across materials, structure, texture and flavour integration, process fit, cost, manufacturability, product evaluation, and scale-up readiness.
Responsibilities
- Translate product goals into technical workstreams across material selection, structure, texture and flavour integration, process fit, cost, manufacturability, and scale-up readiness.
- Convert product challenges into clear R&D questions, hypotheses, experiment plans, timelines, trial protocols, and technical decision points.
- Guide and review hands-on formulation, raw material screening, supplier evaluation, trial execution, and product improvement work.
- Review trial outcomes, analytical data, sensory feedback, external lab results, and production observations to define practical next steps.
- Build and maintain systems for trial planning, documentation, SOPs, formulation history, decision logs, product evaluation, and technical knowledge transfer.
- Work closely with production, quality, engineering, procurement, and leadership to improve repeatability, manufacturability, cost, and product consistency.
- Lead the product development team through day-to-day execution, assigning clear ownership, removing blockers, and strengthening technical judgment across the group.
- Communicate technical status, risks, trade-offs, resource needs, and recommendations clearly to cross-functional teams.
Requirement
- Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD in Materials Science, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Polymer Science, Food Technology, Biotechnology, Applied Physics, or a related technical field.
- 10+ years of experience in product development, R&D, materials development, process development, formulation, or technical execution leadership.
- Strong first-principles problem-solving ability, with a track record of breaking complex technical challenges into testable hypotheses and practical experiments.
- Strong understanding of materials, structure-property relationships, rheology, texture, mechanics, processing effects, or related physical systems.
- Experience taking products or technologies from concept or bench-scale development toward pilot-scale or commercial-scale execution.
- Demonstrated ability to design experiments, interpret data, make practical technical decisions, and communicate trade-offs clearly.
- Experience leading technical teams in hands-on environments, managing multiple R&D priorities, and building documentation or technical operating systems.
- Comfort working in a fast-moving, hands-on startup environment with incomplete information and evolving constraints.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to clearly convey technical findings, trade-offs, risks, and recommendations across R&D, manufacturing, quality, engineering, procurement, and leadership teams.
- Strong alignment with Demolish Foods’ mission and interest in building better food systems.
Location: Bangalore, India.
This role is expected to be primarily on-site due to the hands-on nature of product development, pilot-line work, product evaluation, and cross-functional execution. The role will also require travel to manufacturing locations, supplier sites, or customer sites as needed.
Click on Apply to know more.