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Leading the technical innovation on kibbles that work together to create our unique tailor-made kibble blends.

Changing the world of pet food for good

We’re tails.com, a dog food subscription company with a big difference. We create truly tailored food for each and every dog we serve. We start by asking people a few simple questions about their dog. Then we use that information to create their dog’s unique tails.com recipe – so their dog gets exactly the nutrition they need, in the taste they love, delivered to their door every month. It’s clever stuff.

We’ve got bold plans. Having created an entirely new category in pet food, we’re now scaling fast in the UK and Europe – backed by Purina, one of the world’s largest pet food companies. You’ll join a bunch of smart people working towards the same goals – and a bunch of smart-ish dogs, all working on their own thing.
Together, we’ll change the world of pet food for good.

Join the food technology team

We understand that our pets' needs are ever changing. Our job is to create tasty recipes that dogs love and their owners can trust, to deliver the unique nutritional needs of their beloved companions throughout their lifetime.

Sound like a team you want to join? Here’s how you’ll make a difference:

The role

As a Senior Food Technologist, you will ideate, develop and launch innovative physical products. But this is not your average food technologist role; you aren’t just responsible for developing a compelling range of kibbles but ensuring they work together in harmony to create tailor-made blends out of a million possible combinations. This is a maternity cover role for 12 months.

The things you’ll do

• Lead the technical food development of kibble from ideation to launch, working closely with cross-functional teams to develop new and optimise existing products, including but not limited to:

  • Gather information on site capabilities and work on continuous improvement projects.

  • Participate and drive key supplier SPRs for innovation.

  • Drive the projects forward with the suppliers and highlight any risks to the key stakeholders in a timely manner.

  • Support the quality team in investigating issues related to new or existing products.

  • Input into business cases, risk assessments, incident management teams and marketing briefs

  • Participate in the product selection process

  • Ensure the specifications and due diligence documents are kept up to date for all kibble products

  • Complete regulatory checks for any claims used across the range and business wide communications

  • Support innovation and range planning events to initiate new opportunity identification

• Develop and maintain strong relationships with suppliers, manufacturers, and other industry stakeholders to ensure that products are developed to the highest standards.

• Ensure that all products are developed and manufactured in compliance with relevant pet food safety regulations and standards.

• Management of the food team’s data and insight priorities and backlog of projects in partnership with a dedicated data analyst

• Monitor how our blends are delivering on our nutritional promise and regulatory compliance

• Lead selected modules of internal food and nutritional training

The skills you’ll bring

• A passion for innovation and a desire to bring new and exciting pet food products to market

• Solid experience in food development, with a strong understanding of food processing and ingredient functionality

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to build effective and collaborative cross functional relationships both internally and externally

• Strong project management and prioritisation skills, with the ability to work solo, handle multiple projects simultaneously and meet tight deadlines

• A skilled communicator, who can explain complex ideas, issues, and implications to senior, technical and non-technical audiences

• Thrives in a high-energy, agile, fast-paced environment with some level of ambiguity

Ideal experience but not required

• Experience in pet food and the pet food industry regulatory landscape

• Experience in working for an e-commerce and/or subscription business

• An understanding of digital product design principles

• Experience in all elements of factory trials, pre-pros and launches

• Experience in managing direct reports

What next?

If this sounds like it matches your experience and what you’d love to do, we can’t wait to hear from you! If you’re unsure whether you fit our criteria exactly, please get in touch anyway. And because we believe that diverse teams perform better, we’d especially love to hear from you if you’re from an under-represented demographic.

Here’s a taster of how our recruitment process works:

Our Commitment

We’re proud to be an active equal opportunity employer. We want to give everyone a fair chance to join us in changing the world of pet food for good. We do this by conducting a structured recruitment process for all candidates, as well as actively promoting our roles to communities that are under-represented at tails.com.

During your interview process you’ll meet some of our team with varying levels of responsibility and experience. We want to give every candidate a fair interview process and if you need any reasonable adjustments made, please let us know.

What's in it for you?

• Competitive salary, reviewed annually.

• Annual bonus, based on company performance.

• Flexible core hours, giving you true work life balance.

• Hybrid role to ensure this role works for you.

• 25 days of holiday (excluding bank holidays) which increases over time to a max of 27 days.

• 9/10 day working week - meaning every other Friday off to enhance your wellbeing without a reduction in pay and leave allowance.

• Optional 5 days unpaid leave and 1 paid volunteer day each year.

• When you need a change of scenery, you can work from abroad 2 weeks every 6 months.

• Health insurance for you, paid by tails.com (starting mid 2023) & discounted gym membership.

• Extended maternity, shared parental and adoption pay. Up to 6 months at 70% pay, linked to statutory parental pay.

• Flexible paid care leave to support immediate dependants, people close to you and pets.

• An external financial coach to support a range of topics - debt management, savings and investments.

• Vet service - to support with all pet related questions.

• In house L&D team, with access to year round courses to help drive your development.

• 50% discount on all tails.com and 40% on Republic of Cats products.