Company Description Vitalpro Consumer Pvt Ltd is an emerging leader in India’s hospitality and food and beverage sector, known for its cutting-edge and quality-driven approach. The company builds beloved brands such as Saffron & Mishri, which reimagines traditional Indian mithai, and 224 Craftery, which blends global chocolate-making craft with flavors tailored to Indian tastes. Vitalpro focuses on creating memorable culinary experiences that balance tradition with modernity, backed by data-driven insights, precision marketing, and hyper-personalized engagement. With a strong emphasis on creativity, excellence, and people development, the company aims to transform India’s food culture while offering team members a growth-oriented, purpose-led career journey.

Experience:
6–12 Years

Location:
Mumbai Reporting To: Founder / Business Head Role OverviewWe are looking for a passionate and experienced New Product Development Lead to drive food innovation across our brands. The role will be responsible for conceptualising, developing and commercialising differentiated food products across traditional Indian sweets, contemporary confectionery, chocolates, snacking and other food categories. The ideal candidate should bring a strong understanding of food science, ingredients, formulations, processing technologies and consumer trends, combined with the creativity to develop exciting products and the execution capability to scale them commercially.

Key Responsibilities
1. Product Innovation & Concept Development
• Drive the end-to-end new product development pipeline across food categories.
• Identify emerging consumer trends, consumption occasions and product opportunities.
• Develop innovative concepts across mithai, confectionery, chocolates, snacks and other food categories.
• Experiment with new ingredients, flavours, textures, formats and processing techniques.
• Develop differentiated products combining Indian food heritage with contemporary tastes and formats.
• Create product concepts aligned with brand positioning and consumer expectations. 2. Formulation & Product Development
• Lead product formulation,



ingredient selection and recipe development.
• Conduct kitchen and laboratory trials to optimise taste, texture, appearance and overall product experience.
• Work on sugar reduction, ingredient optimisation, nutritional profiles and shelf-life enhancement.
• Explore new ingredients, functional ingredients and food technologies.
• Develop alternatives to existing formulations wherever required.
• Ensure products meet applicable FSSAI and food safety requirements. 3. Process Development & Commercialisation
• Translate prototype formulations into scalable commercial products.
• Develop manufacturing processes, process parameters and standard operating procedures.
• Work closely with manufacturing teams to establish production feasibility.
• Identify suitable equipment, technologies and manufacturing processes.
• Drive pilot batches, production trials and product validation.
• Ensure consistency and repeatability across production batches. 4. Quality, Shelf Life & Packaging
• Develop products with appropriate shelf life and stability.
• Work on preservation technologies, packaging compatibility and storage conditions.
• Conduct sensory evaluations, stability studies and shelf-life trials.
• Establish product specifications, quality benchmarks and acceptance criteria.
• Collaborate with packaging teams to identify suitable packaging solutions. 5. Costing & Commercial Viability
• Develop product costing and optimise ingredient costs.
• Ensure formulations meet target gross margins without compromising product quality.
• Identify alternative ingredients and vendors.
• Evaluate scalability, manufacturing efficiency and commercial viability.
• Work towards improving product economics through formulation and process optimisation. 6.



Cross-functional Collaboration
• Work closely with marketing and brand teams to translate consumer insights into product propositions.
• Collaborate with procurement on ingredient sourcing and vendor development.
• Partner with manufacturing and quality teams for product commercialisation.
• Coordinate with packaging, sales and business teams to ensure successful launches.
• Build and maintain a structured product development calendar and innovation pipeline. Desired Skills & Experience
• 6–12 years of experience in food product development, R&D; or food innovation.
• Degree in Food Technology, Food Science, Food Engineering or a related discipline.
• Strong understanding of food ingredients, formulations and processing technologies.
• Experience in developing and commercialising food products at scale.
• Knowledge of shelf-life enhancement, preservation systems and food packaging technologies.
• Understanding of food safety standards, FSSAI regulations and quality systems.
• Strong analytical, experimentation and problem-solving capabilities.
• Ability to balance creativity, product quality, cost and commercial feasibility.
• Experience working in FMCG, food manufacturing, confectionery or packaged foods preferred. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
• Number of successful recent product launches.
• Speed and efficiency of product development.
• Product quality, consistency and consumer acceptance.
• Shelf-life and product stability performance.
• Achievement of target product costs and gross margins.
• Successful scale-up from laboratory trials to commercial production.
• Innovation pipeline and launch calendar delivery. The Ideal CandidateA food innovator who combines the mind of a food scientist with the creativity of a product developer and the execution mindset of an FMCG professional. Someone who is passionate about food, constantly curious about ingredients and technologies, and capable of converting exciting ideas into differentiated, scalable and commercially successful products.

📌 New Product Development Lead (Mumbai)
🏢 Vitalpro Consumer
📍 Mumbai