WHO WE ARE
Little Spoon is the leading direct-to-consumer brand on a mission to make parents’ lives easier through high quality, healthy meal and snack-time solutions for babies, toddlers + big kids. Little Spoon sets children up for a lifetime of health, from a baby’s very first bites through to their big kid years, with a portfolio of freshly-made baby food, early finger foods, toddler and big kid meals and snacks. Since launch, the company has delivered more than 31 million meals, helping to simplify the lives of hundreds of thousands of parents across the US. Little Spoon and its community platform, Is This Normal, are here to disrupt the +$100B children’s health and wellness market, offering modern solutions, trusted resources, and a new way to connect with a network of parents. Learn more at LittleSpoon.com and IsThisNormal.co, or find Little Spoon on Instagram at @LittleSpoon.
Little Spoon is a fast-growing venture-backed company based in NYC.
THE ROLE
- Understand the needs of our customer. Work with Culinary R&D to develop products that solve for those needs and align with Little Spoon’s brand vision and values.
- Own product development projects from development to commercialization, with a focus on scale up of bench formulas to full scale manufacturing
- Identify opportunities for improvement among existing product lines and work on various renovation projects
- Identify suitable manufacturing partners and third-party co-packers
- Work with partners to commercialize new concepts from trial runs to full-scale production
- Source and test all elements of product packaging
- Work with operations team to source raw materials by identifying, vetting and onboarding new vendor partners as needed
- Develop COGS model and determine product pricing, working collaboratively with the chief product officer and the management team to determine viability
- Liaise with internal and external stakeholders on all aspects of food safety, labeling and regulatory requirements
- Work cross-functionally to organize consumer testing of products and ensure any refinements are made prior to market launch
- Work with QA to ensure rigorous QA standards are met by all third party suppliers and partners
- Work collaboratively with our operations team to ensure product is successfully scaled up and commercialized and ready for production at scale and distribution
- Run point on the launch process, working with all internal and external stakeholders (marketing, customer care, operations, finance/data and tech) teams to ensure a successful, on-time launch
DESIRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE
Our ideal candidate will check most of these boxes:
- 6-8 years of product development experience
- Experience working with a breadth of third-party co-packers on food related projects
- Proven ability to translate consumer insights into cutting-edge products
- Demonstrated knowledge of ingredient functionality
- Extremely organized with experience handling and managing multiple projects, prioritizing and managing complexity from pilot through commercialization
- Excellent research skills. Curious thinker with a creative approach to innovation
- Extensive knowledge of USDA/FDA Regulations
- Culinary orientation and ability to translate consumer insights into innovative products. Culinary background a plus
ADDITIONAL INFO
- Hybrid, based in Pittsburgh, PA
- Requires travel to visit suppliers and manufacturing partners
- A supportive and inclusive workplace filled with passionate, happy and smart people
- Entrepreneurial environment with lots of room for growth and innovation
- Flexible vacation and time off
- Competitive compensation including equity and 401k
- Comprehensive health benefits including medical, vision and dental
- Up to 25% travel within North America
At Little Spoon we are fully committed to building a safe and inclusive workplace – a place where our team can think differently, challenge the status quo and have a little fun in the process. We have zero tolerance for harassment or discrimination. We do not discriminate and will not make any hiring decisions on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability.