Animal Nutritionist

We are looking for an Animal Nutritionist to help us continue to deliver and innovate our client's tailored nutrition proposition.
You’ll be an individual contributor, partnering across our client's business to help drive the next stage of growth as they scale sustainably, helping them change the world of pet food for good.

The company:
A dog food subscription company plans to scale up fast in the UK and Europe – backed by one of the world’s largest pet food companies.

The role
As an Animal Nutritionist, you will be instrumental in the next stage of growth as they scale sustainably. You will be an individual contributor partnering across our client's business to help them continue to deliver & innovate our tailored nutrition proposition.
You will be responsible for:

Proposition development and promise delivery
● Acting as a collaborative partner for the Proposition Senior Technical Expert,
including:
○ Innovations to the overall proposition
○ Improvements to the Food & Nutrition Philosophy
○ Improvements to Ingredient Guidelines
● Keeping up to date with pet food industry trends and nutrition research news to bring back into the business and advise on application for the company
● Proactively sharing and advising on new and relevant studies related to
nutrition and dog health that could impact their proposition
● Partnering with data labs to initiate research and white paper development
● Partnering with the Quality team to ensure their testing methodology is fit for
purpose
● Supporting with escalated customer queries and complaints regarding nutrition raised by the CX Nutrition team

Regulatory Landscape
● Supporting interpretation of new legislation and regulation
● Supporting team with evidence for substantiation of claims and dossier
development

Food Development
● Providing support & direction on food development projects in partnership with cross-functional category teams (i.e., Range, Food Science, Planning & Supply):
○ Formula - How ingredients fit into recipe, how appropriate their use is
○ Nutritional - Assessing how appropriate the concept is for dogs
nutritionally and the intended claims
○ Claims - Suggesting claims, reviewing claims and dossier development
○ Legislative - Understanding if they can use certain ingredients in different
ways or not, understanding the difference between medicinal products
and healthy dog products
○ Specification - Total review of specifications from suppliers (e.g.,
formulations, recipes, limits, allergens, etc.)
○ Advising on potential issues and challenges that may arise

Public relations, external liaison and representation
● Representing the company at UK Pet Food meetings and in industry comms, where nutrition topics are relevant
● Participating in and supporting media and PR efforts (TV, radio, social, blogs)
● Supporting and advising on content campaigns (social, PR, influencer) to
ensure they are aligned with the company values and stance on nutrition and health

We invite candidates with the following skills:
● Masters Degree in Animal Nutrition or similar
● Self-motivated with the ability to manage multiple priorities, prioritise and work at pace in a fast-changing environment
● Ability to work with and understand complex nutritional data
● A confident communicator who can explain ideas, issues, and implications to
senior, technical, and non-technical audiences
● Creative and innovative problem-solving skills - ability to dissect and determine root cause and suggest solutions
● Demonstrated customer, commercial, and market awareness
● Knowledge of regulations, industry codes, and guidelines in the pet industry

Nice-to-have
● Experience in the pet food industry and pet food processes (e.g., extrusion,
thermal processing, baking, etc.)
● Experience working with technical R&D and Quality teams
● Effective and collaborative relationship-building and networking
● An understanding of digital product design principles

Our client's 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 our company.

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 - please contact us to discuss.
● 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 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 the company and 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
● In-house L&D team, with access to year round courses to help drive your
development
● 50% discount on all the company products and 40% on Republic of Cats product