Food Tech || Head of Food Innovation, NPD & Scalable OperationsLocation : Hyderabad Company - Craft My Plate (CMP) – Curated Catering & Bulk Food Platform
Role Overview
Craft My Plate is hiring a hands-on food tech builder to take us from chef-dependent execution to clean, repeatable, system-led operations. A strong entrepreneurial mindset to build, standardize, and scale CMP’s food innovation with tech-enabled food models.This role is about locking SOPs, consistency, and backend readiness so we can scale across kitchens and cities without chaos. You’ll build the foundation today and help CMP unlock central kitchens and smarter shelf-life models as we grow.
Key Responsibilities
1. Food Innovation, NPD & EPD
- Lead New Product Development (NPD) and Existing Product Development (EPD) across cuisines and categories
- Develop recipes aligned to brand, category, cost, shelf life, and scalability goals
- Work with modern cooking & regeneration techniques aligned with latest food trends
- Regenerate and standardize recipes for bulk, factory, cloud kitchen, and POD models
2. Scalable Recipe & Product Architecture
- Own recipe formulation, translation, and execution at scale
- Define Raw Material (RM) specifications to ensure consistency in bulk production
- Create Finished Goods (FG) specifications (portion size, grammage, shape, design)
- Ensure recipes are execution-friendly and consistent across locations
3. Shelf-Life, Storage & Format Design
- Design products across Frozen, Ambient, Retort, Chilled formats
- Define storage formats, regeneration SOPs, and kitchen-line execution
- Align shelf-life with logistics, inventory, and ops feasibility
4. Costing, Benchmarking & Market Fit
- Own benchmark costing for recipes, ingredients, and finished products
- Conduct market benchmarking vs competition and category leaders
- Define SKU positioning, pricing logic, and success metrics
- Balance cost, quality, taste, texture, and scalability
5. Trials, Sensory & Quality Control
- Conduct internal, management, and consumer trials
- Evaluate products on taste, texture, aroma, aftertaste, and CX impact
- Document outcomes, COA closures, and success matrices
- Certify and sign-off RM & FG COA documents for future scale
6. Vendor, Factory & Third-Party Collaboration
- Work closely with vendors, co-packers, and third-party manufacturers
- Ensure quality consistency across partners
7. SOPs, Compliance & Food Safety
- Define and implement SOPs across outlets, cloud kitchens, PODs
- Ensure HACCP, food safety, and compliance standards
- Define equipment, regeneration specs, and critical control points (KPTs)
- Implement controls for wastage, portioning, quality, and food cost
8. Team, Leadership & Pre-Opening
- Build, mentor, and guide kitchen and food R&D teams
- Delegate efficiently and drive accountability
- Support pre-opening and opening of new kitchens/facilities
- Drive profitability, efficiency, and innovation through systems
Ideal Candidate Profile
- 8 - 10+ years experience in Food Tech / QSR / Cloud Kitchen / Factory Food Models
- Strong background in NPD, EPD, shelf-stable and frozen foods
- Experience with large-scale brands (Zepto, Swiggy, Rebel or similar)
- Hands-on experience with Ambient, Frozen, Retort, Chilled products
- Strong understanding of tech-enabled food scaling
- Entrepreneurial, execution-focused, and systems-driven leader
What Success Looks Like at CMP
- CMP food products scaled pan-India with zero quality drift
- Consistent taste and execution across kitchens
- High customer ratings and repeat usage
- Strong backend SOPs enabling fast expansion
Why Join Craft My Plate
- Opportunity to build India’s most scalable curated catering backend
- High ownership and direct founder collaboration
- Freedom to design future-ready food systems
- Long-term leadership role in a growing food-tech platform
