Product Design and Development Specialist, Beverages, India

JOB TITLE : Product Design and Development Specialist, India

WORK LEVEL : 1B / 1C

LOCATION : Unilever R&D Bangalore, India

About Unilever R&D

Unilever R&D is an exciting place to work for product, process, and packaging developers. With 6000+ scientists, researchers, product developers around the world, it offers the possibility for seamless global networking.

Business Context And Main Purpose Of The Job

Tea is the largest category in HUL Foods, with over €750 million in turnover and strong growth momentum. HUL leads the Indian tea market with iconic brands like Taj Mahal, Red Label, Lipton, Taaza, and 3 Roses.

This role offers a great opportunity to contribute as a Product Design & Development Specialist, supporting innovation across Retail and out-of-home (OOH) tea formats, including vending.

R&D plays a key role in driving category growth through differentiated, science-led innovations.

If you're passionate about products and consumers, enjoy innovation, and thrive in collaborative environments — this role is for you. We're seeking a passionate and proactive individual to develop breakthrough product solutions grounded in deep consumer insight and market foresight.

Key expectations from the role are –

Core

• Key requirement of the role is to work on innovation / renovation / value improvement projects for both product & process development, and technology transfer.
• The person should design and develop innovations, renovation and cost-saving projects for Tea (Black, Green, Instant), Coffee (R&G, Instant, Beans), and premixes formulations, aligned with business briefs.
• Consumer understanding : Translate consumer habits and insights into product attributes, develop hypotheses, and validate through testing.
• Conduct competition benchmarking and monitor market trends to identify gaps, opportunities, and areas for product differentiation. Use these insights for formulation, claims, and innovation strategy.
• Characterize product attributes using existing or new measurement techniques.
• Ensuring statutory regulatory & legal compliances for products & process.
• Claims & Demo generation & substantiation : help developing competitive claims and demo along with substantiation to defend those claims
• Conduct shelf-life studies and stability assessments for intermediate and finished products.
• Drive value improvement through specification flexing and technology leverage.
• Handling customer complaints (technical aspect) and appreciating their concerns.
• Plan and execute experiments with scientific rigor; analyze data and draw conclusions.

Project Execution & Scale-up

CROSS-FUNCTIONAL COLLABORATION

Capabilities & Skills

Education & Experience

Master's or Bachelor's degree in Food Science, Food Technology, Chemical Engineering, or related field.

3–5 years of relevant experience in Food / Beverage R&D.

Critical Sol (standards Of Leadership) Behaviors

Our Commitment To Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

Unilever embraces diversity and encourages applicants from all walks of life! This means giving full and fair consideration to all applicants and continuing development of all employees regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity.

Skills Required

Data Analysis And Interpretation, Experimental Design