Culinary & Ingredient Development Specialist (all genders)

The role

We’re looking for a Culinary Ingredient & Recipe Developer to join the HelloFresh Product Operations team. In this role, you’ll blend culinary creativity with strategic ingredient management to shape the future of our menu.

Beyond developing delicious, high-quality recipes, you’ll own and optimize our ingredient portfolio—researching, testing, and sourcing new products that expand variety, drive innovation, and align needs and processes with our operational capabilities. By leveraging customer insights and feedback, you’ll help ensure every dish delights our customers and elevates their mealtime experience.

This is a highly cross-functional role, collaborating closely with global culinary and ingredient teams as well as local operations and procurement partners to deliver a product that’s as operationally efficient as it is customer-loved.

Above all, we are looking for people who will make HelloFresh better. We believe there are many different ways of developing skills and we love diverse experiences! So even if you don’t “tick all the boxes” but think you’d thrive in this role, we would really like to learn more about you.

What you’ll do

• Develop ~3-4 new recipes every week maintaining product fit, cost, and nutritional targets - which includes designing, cooking, and writing detailed instructions for each recipe using standardized guidelines, focusing on ease of execution for the customer

• Build expertise across ingredient categories: you’ll be familiar with the look, taste, and specifications of ingredients and their suppliers

• Bring novelty and excitement to our product by continuously successfully introducing new ingredients onto our menus

• Guide the process of onboarding new ingredients based on market trends and improving existing ingredients based on customer feedback

• Lead sensory tastings for new ingredients and recipes

• Take responsibility for ingredient swaps and recipe recooks

• Optimize ingredient management processes to drive efficiencies and feedback loops with local procurement and culinary teams

• Set-up and track new ingredient tests and create reports on recommended future usage by our menu planning and culinary development team members

• Derisk ingredient utilization to drive quality and quantity improvements in partnership with local Food Safety & Quality Assurance, procurement, and menu teams

• Collaborate with local and global stakeholders, including category managers, food safety specialists, and recipe developers

What you’ll bring

• 2+ years experience in Food Product Development, ingredient management, or similar field

• Obsessed with food; – food-related educational background is valued but not compulsory

• Strong understanding of Italian food culture and trends

• Analytical mindset and know how to use data as the basis of your decisions

• Strong written and in-person communication skills: you enjoy working with many different stakeholders

• Driven by results and firm believer in accountability: a task-oriented self-starter who proactively takes on big ideas and projects and is capable of impeccably executing them in a fast-paced environment

• Strong organizational capabilities, comfortable tracking and managing different processes

• Proficiency in key features of the Google Workspace platform including Drive, Gmail, Google Meet, Docs, Sheets, Forms, and Slides

• Mandatory Italian native communication skills and English fluency, both spoken and written

What we offer

• The chance to have a serious impact on one of the fastest-growing technology companies in Europe in an exciting growth phase on the Italian market

• A vibrant international environment with mission-driven colleagues

• Smart-working opportunity for up to 50% of your time

• Additional 4 days of holidays on top of the CCNL ones

• Benefit from our selection of employee perks

• Significant reduction on your HelloFresh boxes

• Meal vouchers

• Access to Wellhub (online sport platform with more than 1000 videos on demand and 300 live videos of yoga pilates cardio toning and meditation)

• Welfare credit after two years in the company

• High-end tech equipment

• Monthly social events & bi-annual company parties

• Free drinks snacks and fruits in our vibrant and recently renovated office in Milan

Are you up for the challenge?

Please submit your complete application below including your salary expectations and earliest starting date.

After submitting an application our team will review this and get back to you within 5 business days.