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About the Role
We are looking for a Head of Food who knows what makes exceptional cat food and will decide where our product goes next. You will be our go-to expert on feline nutrition, formulation, palatability, and sensory science. You will own Marro’s product development strategy end-to-end, from the long-term vision and shape of our range to the roadmap that gets us there, and then bring it to life in the kitchen. You will own retention and palatability, ensuring fewer customers pause due to food and cats choose Marro every time. This role requires owning the Marro budget, making final decisions on product formulation, and collaborating with Operations, Commercial, Brand, Marketing, and external partners. You will report to the Product Development Director and work in partnership with them.
Responsibilities
- Keep cats eating and customers staying by reducing pauses related to food, using pause reasons, customer feedback, and cat response data.
- Own palatability performance by defining winning metrics, measuring rigorously, and continuously improving against market leaders.
- Set the direction and make decisions for product development strategy, including the range's future, discontinuations, and defining "the best cat food" for Marro.
- Develop a prioritized multi-year roadmap grounded in customer insights, scientific evidence, and commercial goals.
- Make decisions on trade-offs between nutrition, palatability, quality, cost, and manufacturability, and stand behind them.
- Own the Marro budget for trials, palatability and sensory testing, external specialists, and research.
- Build business cases for product changes, covering recipe cost, margin, savings, and customer benefit, and make the final decision.
- Serve as the leading expert on feline nutrition, ingredients, formulation, processing, palatability, and sensory science.
- Set benchmarks for quality at Marro and collaborate with Operations to address quality issues.
- Determine research needs, work with external specialists, and translate evidence into improved recipes and processes.
- Approve product quality and claims, and collaborate with Brand and Marketing to highlight the food's strengths.
Requirements
- Obsessed with outcomes, judging success by cat food preference and customer retention.
- Deep expertise in feline nutrition, ingredients, formulation, processing, sensory, and palatability.
- Strong product judgment, balancing nutrition, palatability, quality, customer expectations, manufacturing realities, and cost.
- Proven ability to shape product strategy and deliver against roadmaps.
- Ability to lead cross-functional work with confidence and influence senior stakeholders.
- Hands-on experience tasting, running trials, and evaluating product.
- Scientifically curious, with a passion for evidence-based research and practical application.
- Ability to raise the bar around you, coach others, and challenge the status quo.
- Startup mentality, comfortable with ambiguity, moving quickly, and taking ownership.
- Ideally, a degree or postgraduate qualification in animal nutrition, food science, sensory science, or a related field, or equivalent hands-on pet food experience.
Skills
- Feline nutrition
- Formulation
- Palatability
- Sensory science
- Product development strategy
- Budget management
- Cross-functional leadership
- Stakeholder influence
- Product quality assessment
- Recipe development
- Process improvement
- Market analysis
Location
- London
Work Type
- Hybrid
- Full-time
Experience Level
- Senior
- Management
Education Level
- Degree in animal nutrition, food science, sensory science, or related field (preferred)
- Postgraduate qualification in animal nutrition, food science, sensory science, or related field (preferred)
- Equivalent hands-on pet food experience
Benefits
- Equity option package
- 25 days holiday plus 8 bank holidays
- 5 paws days
- Additional day of holiday per year of service
- £500 personal learning & development budget
- Employee discount on Butternut Box / Marro
- Subsidised Private Medical Insurance with Vitality
- Cycle to work scheme
- Flexible working
- Team socials
- Company-wide summer and winter parties
About the Company
- Marro's purpose is to make the lives of cats and their people happier, healthier, and easier.
- The company is guided by the joy of cats, sharing expertise, making life easier for the community, and the importance of feeding cats healthy food they love.
- Marro is positioned as the fresh food option for cats, similar to Butternut Box for dogs.
- The Product Development team is the foundation of the business, responsible for great food, strong nutrition, and products that improve pets' health.
- The team owns the physical product's appearance and its delivery of benefits for pets.
- The team is deliberately lean and close-knit, fostering ownership and development opportunities.
- The team shares a deep belief in their products, the fresh food category, and its power to improve pets' lives.
Equal Opportunity
- We're not afraid of putting extra weight on candidates from underrepresented groups.
- We want strong, diverse teams built from different backgrounds, experiences, and identities.
- We're ready for the ongoing work that goes into building an inclusive, supportive place for you to do the best work of your career.