Food Scientist/Application Specialist - UltraSource LLC

Company Background:

Since our founding in 1883, UltraSource has served the processing and packaging equipment needs of thousands of companies worldwide in the meat and poultry, seafood, produce, dairy, medical and pharmaceutical industries. Our comprehensive offering includes hundreds of products that enable us to custom tailor equipment solutions that meet the production line objectives, labor goals, budget constraints and brand image of our customers.

UltraSource's quality program ensures our products are engineered and produced to meet or exceed our customers' requirements. Reliability, maintainability, and safety are at the forefront of our engineering strategy and support to our dedication to quality.

Summary:

To maintain expert knowledge in specific product lines of company sold food processing and post processing equipment as well as competitor offerings. Objectives include communicating accurate product knowledge to sales, service, and marketing, driving new projects associated with the product lines, providing technical support to sales and customers, and creating balance between sales and manufacturing by remaining as the primary technical resource throughout the lifecycle of the product offering.

In addition, the Food Scientist/Equipment Application Specialist will coordinate and support all aspects of the UltraSource Academy seminars, as well as provide training to students on various types of equipment.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Translate UltraSource's technology and innovative solutions available into unique customer solutions.
• Actively gather and organize internal and vendor information related to produce technology and equipment applications.
• Facilitate product line and industry practices training both within the organization and externally to customers and vendors.
• Act as a key member of cross-functional teams, providing technical expertise and insights to customer needs.
• Participate in technology development and improvement processes to identify value-added customer solutions.
• Must thoroughly understand the products and applications and become the "product expert."
• Act as a support resource for sales team regarding technological product information and work with sales to achieve goals.
• Provide support for presentations and product demonstrations for new customer applications and the testing of various processing machines.
• Analyze customer needs and coordinate them with existing products or modify existing products to deliver the maximum return on the customer's investment.
• Evaluate product performance and advise sales and product line managers regarding product concerns.
• Handle product problems and issues that may arise and communicate with manufacturer and/or service engineer to resolve.
• Provide direction to marketing communications regarding the creation of marketing collateral.
• Travel to tradeshows and customer locations to provide on-site support and application troubleshooting. Approximately 15% travel required, including international.

Other Responsibilities:

• Stay current on trends in the marketplace to ensure the product's competitive position and interface with product line managers and customers to determine the product's future direction.
• Observe all safety and security procedures for your area. Use equipment and materials properly and report potentially unsafe conditions to management. Your personal safety actions will be accountable in your performance review.
• Other duties as assigned.

Education and/or Experience:

• M.S. in Animal Science, Meat Science, Food Science, Food Engineering, Engineering, similar field or B.S. and 5+ years of food industry experience.
• Possess the ability to gather, interpret, and communicate technical information to parties both internally and externally.
• Possess the ability to lead and/or collaborate on customer projects.
• Possess the ability to plan and design testing procedures, anticipate next steps and potential problems, and identify solutions.
• Ability to partner with cross-functional business team members.

Other Skills and Knowledge:

• Strong organization, problem solving, and analytical skills are essential.
• Excellent verbal, written, and presentation skills.
• Intermediate knowledge of Microsoft 365 (Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams) and Dynamics.
• Must be able to effectively communicate simultaneously between the vendor, sales, service and marketing and other various departments as required.

Physical Demands:

Must be able to fulfill all essential job functions in a consistent state of alertness and in a safe manner. The employee is regularly required to sit, use hands, talk and hear. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 50 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perceptions and ability to adjust focus. To evaluate product will require the employee to bend, reach, crouch, and climb safety ladders and platforms. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions.

Work Environment:

Must be able to fulfill all essential job functions in a consistent state of alertness and in a safe manner. The majority of the work is performed in an office setting that includes cubicles, desks, computers, copiers and equipment used to produce written documents. The employee will also spend time in typical manufacturing and processing facilities that will include refrigeration, high humidity, moving and processing equipment, and moderate noise exposure.