Senior Director, Owned Brands & Culinary R&D

Summary

Join Hungryroot as a Sr. Director of Owned Brands & Culinary R&D to lead the development of private label products and culinary recipe innovation. You will identify market opportunities, develop new product concepts, oversee formulation and recipe development, and ensure high-quality execution from ideation to launch. Collaborate with merchandising, category management, and operations teams, and manage external manufacturing partners and the in-house culinary team. The ideal candidate possesses creative culinary vision, disciplined execution, and thrives at the intersection of product strategy, food trends, and customer experience. This role requires strong leadership, cross-functional collaboration, and a passion for healthy food. Hungryroot offers a remote-first work environment with various benefits.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in food product development, culinary innovation, or private label strategy, ideally in a grocery, CPG, or foodtech environment
• Experience leading culinary or recipe development teams, with a strong understanding of nutrition and consumer health goals
• Proven success bringing new food products to market—end-to-end—from concept to scale
• Experience working directly with co-manufacturers or co-packers
• Strong project management skills with ability to manage multiple timelines and cross-functional workstreams
• Deep knowledge of culinary trends, food formulation, and recipe development
• Passion for healthy food, simplicity, and delivering delight through the customer experience
• Natural collaborator who can work cross-functionally and inspire both internal and external partners

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve Hungryroot’s private label product development strategy in partnership with merchandising and category teams
• Identify opportunities to expand and differentiate the owned brand assortment based on customer needs, business goals, and trend insights
• Translate market and consumer insights into new product concepts and category strategies
• Lead the development of innovative product formulations that meet Hungryroot’s nutritional and culinary standards
• Iterate on product formulations to achieve desired customer experience
• Partner with culinary experts to prototype and test new products and recipes
• Manage the end-to-end product development process: from ideation and brief through R&D, testing, packaging & design, and scale-up
• Work closely with manufacturing partners and internal operations teams to ensure consistency, quality, and scalability
• Establish and oversee timelines, critical paths, and cross-functional checkpoints to deliver projects on time and on spec
• Lead our internal team of chefs responsible for developing new, easy-to-make meal recipes using the ingredients available in our store
• Oversee recipe development that supports a variety of meal occasions, dietary needs, and nutrition goals
• Stay on the pulse of food and flavor trends to inspire ongoing meal and recipe innovation
• Ensure recipe content aligns with Hungryroot’s brand promise and helps customers discover healthy, craveable meals
• Own quality assurance protocols and product standards for all private label items
• Lead continuous improvement efforts in taste, nutritional value, and product consistency

Benefits

• Remote-first: work from home, work from our NYC office, work from anywhere in the U.S. - you decide!
• Equity
• Unlimited vacation policy
• Universal paid parental leave
• Monthly Hungryroot credit for delicious, healthy groceries
• Comprehensive health, vision, dental, and life insurance
• Wellbeing benefits including One Medical, Spring Health, LiveHealth, Rightway care concierge, and more
• 401k with Match
• A work from home stipend to support your initial home-office setup