Food Scientist/rheologist

**UNILEVER IN THE NETHERLANDS IS LOOKING FOR A FOOD SCIENTIST/RHEOLOGIST**

LOCATION Wageningen, The Netherlands - local conditions apply

Full-time

**Salary**: 44 K - 65 K gross per year depending on background and experience.

**ABOUT UNILEVER**

Unilever is one of the world’s leading suppliers of Food, Home Care, Personal Care and Refreshment products with sales in over 190 countries and reaching 3.4 billion consumers a day. It has 128,000 employees. Over half (58%) of the company’s footprint is in developing and emerging markets. Unilever has more than 400 brands found in homes around the world, including Knorr, Dove, Hellmann's, Wall’s, Ben & Jerry's, Marmite, Unox, Magnum and The Vegetarian Butcher.

Welcome to R&D, Unilever’s ideas factory. Our purpose is to build brands through benefit-led innovation, unlocked through science and technology. Unilever R&D has built _the Hive_, a new Global Foods Innovation Centre in Wageningen, the Netherlands. In this way Unilever creates critical mass in expertise areas to ensure that our new technologies ultimately bring breakthrough innovations to the markets that are good for People and Planet. In addition, we aim to evolve our R&D sites into innovation ecosystems to leverage the knowledge and expertise of external partners.

We currently have a vacant position of Technician in Formulation & Rheology/Texture. The vacancy we are recruiting for is within the Product & Process Science department in the global Science & Technology organization, in the Hive.

**OUR TEAM**

The Science & Technology (S&T) team in the Nutrition Business group of Unilever is an agile team of enthusiastic world-class scientists with a clear purpose:

- We are indispensable partners in Nutrition who deliver competitiveness through science and technology
- We unlock the world’s ecosystem to solve problems for today and create inspiring opportunities for tomorrow
- We build on each other’s strengths to magnify our impact

We combine key capabilities across the end-to-end spectrum of food science, biotechnology & engineering with unique knowledge on flavour & formulation sciences, all underpinned by digital modelling capabilities, to deliver differentiating innovations to market that meet consumer needs every day.

The S&T team has a passion for continuous learning, works according to agile principles with a strong can-do mindset.

**MAIN JOB PURPOSE**:
As Food Scientist/Rheologist you will be responsible to build and maintain the measurement capabilities in the area of products characterisation and you will help to find correlations between rheological/texture parameters and sample microstructures that can be related to perceivable characteristics of a given food product. You will work in cross functional teams and in addition to rheological/texture characterisation of products you are also expected to support your project team in sample formulation and preparation. The design, execution, interpretation and reporting of these R&D activities will be done in innovation teams, working according to agile principles.

**WHAT WILL YOU DO?**
- Maintain rheological instruments including trouble shooting, manage regular service and calibration by instrument suppliers, work with the IT department to roll out new measurement software, manage repair and replacement of old or damaged instruments and accessories.
- Manage rheology user group and provide training for new users.
- Develop new rheological methods to extend our measurement capabilities and support project teams to interpret complex rheological/texture data.
- Support sample preparation including unit operations like mixing, emulsification, and homogenization. You will then correlate these results in models to link ingredient characteristics with desired product properties.
- Execute measurements and experiments, collect and report the results and conclusions

**ALL ABOUT YOU**
- Education: a least MSc, or BSc with experience, in related fields, like Food Science & Technology, Process Engineering.
- Specialisation in mechanical characterisation of liquid and soft materials (e.g. rheology, texture)
- 3+ years of relevant work experience in Food Industry or similar area is preferred
- Technical mindset applied to solutions, entrepreneurial mindset & ambition to continuously learn and improve
- Planning and organization skills
- Ability to work in a multi-functional, multi-cultural environment, with good communication skills in English and in (virtual) teams

**WHAT IS IN IT FOR YOU?**

Unilever is the place where you can be yourself and bring your purpose to life with the work that you do - creating a better business and a better world. We offer an exciting & dynamic work environment where you can make things happen. Furthermore, we offer some great reward and benefits
- Attractive total remuneration package; excellent company pension, bonus, share scheme.
- Flexible cross-disciplinary career opportunities and a wealth of training