Packaging Engineer (Pasta)

Business Unit Overview

8th Avenue Food & Provisions is a growing organization made up of businesses that produce and sell quality products including pasta, peanut butter, granola, and fruit and nut trail mixes to retail, foodservice and ingredient customers. The company was formed in October 2018 through a combination of Post Holdings' private brands businesses and is owned by Post Holdings and funds affiliated with Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P. ("THL"), a private equity firm.

Responsibilities

The ideal candidate will be located in either Fenton, MO or New Hope, MN.

Position Summary:

This role is accountable for ensuring the 8th Avenue portfolio is supported by packaging solutions that are highly functional, consumer-intuitive, cost-optimized, innovative, and adhere to company standards and industry conventions. The ideal candidate possesses deep technical knowledge of the food packaging space, including packaging design (features, functionalities, and limitations), material/ component specifications, artwork/label design while optimizing cost & operational interactions. The ideal candidate will have a strong attention to detail, an awareness of consumer insights, and an understanding of the impact to the company's P&L. This role supports Branded and Private Label Pasta as primary areas of responsibility.

Duties and Responsibilities:

Packaging portfolio stewardship & optimization

• Maintain packaging bill-of-materials and specifications for existing portfolio, including primary/secondary packaging and labels

• Establish and maintain a database of current primary and secondary packaging specifications; work with business units to optimize offerings and reduce redundancy/duplication in packaging specifications

• Proactively assess and quantify cost optimization potential across items in the portfolio

• Ensure packaging portfolio

• Optimizes transportation, product stability, and display requirements

• Is designed to be compatible with production lines

• Is in compliance with all internal and external/regulatory requirements

• Supports company's sustainability targets

• Other duties, as assigned

New package development & innovation

• Work with Sales, Product Management, Finance, and Operations to explore and commercialize new products (including those with packaging-inspired innovations)

• Participate in cost/appeal tradeoff assessments

• Contribute to the Stage Gate process to ensure packaging requirements are defined and developed in an effective and timely manner

• Conduct hands-on bench and pilot scale tests to help assess packaging performance, shelf-life, and quality attributes

• Establish expert knowledge of various packaging materials/substrates - their features, functionalities, limitations, and production line feasibility

Quality assurance and supplier management

• Match appropriate inks and print technologies to desired graphics to ensure effective translation to packaging substrates

• Validation tests to ensure packaging suppliers are meeting specified standards

• Work with Procurement to continually assess, nurture, and optimize supplier relationships

Education and Experience Required:

• B.S. in Packaging Engineering or Packaging Science plus 5 years' experience. Certification in Packaging Engineering or Packaging Science plus 7 years' experience.

• Recognized as an in-house authority on packaging systems.

• Strong teamwork, problem solving, and presentation skills.

• Advanced PC skills: Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Experience with JDE, statistical software desired.

• Excellent written and verbal communication, conflict resolution, and interpersonal skills.

• Strong project planning and management skills, ability to lead teams and multiple simultaneous projects effectively.

• Able to be decisive and repeatedly meet deadlines.

• Able to remove barriers.

• Highly motivated individual with ability to work in a fast-paced environment.

• Ability to travel 30-50% is required.

Preferred Education, Experience, and Skills:

• Proven communications ability with all levels of management.

• Proven leadership in managing new package development.

• Demonstrated ability to coach and influence others.