Founded in 2013, Home Chef is the leading meal solutions company with both a retail and online presence. Available online at homechef.com and in retail at more than 2,100 Kroger grocery stores, Home Chef is committed to inspiring and enabling more people to cook simple, delicious meals, no matter how busy they are.

In 2023, Home Chef introduced a new brand, Tempo! Tempo features a rotating selection of ready-to-heat meals delivered directly to your door. These meals are better-for-you versions of familiar favorites, designed to save you time and reduce stress while maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Our Tempo menu includes options that are protein-packed, fiber-rich, calorie and carb conscious, keto-friendly, and dietitian-approved.

Similar to our recipes, we recognize that variety is the spice of life, and therefore, our employees also bring their uniqueness and color to our fantastic team. We’re eager to work with humble team players and pragmatic next-level thinkers to innovate on Home Chef’s offerings.

This role sits in the new product development department as part of the Tempo culinary team. The Associate R&D Chef will be asked to assist Tempo R&D team with key initiatives including, but not limited to: supporting the development of compound ingredient formulations and meals, cooking to support meal R&D, preparing ingredients for product sampling, editing production meals to ensure accuracy, and assisting with photography work. This is an in office role that works in both the R&D kitchen at the Old Post Office in downtown Chicago, IL and in the production kitchen in Bedford Park, IL.

Detailed Responsibilities

Kitchen Operations

Manage and maintain ingredients for R&D and for scaling recipes at our Bedford Park production kitchen, including taking a regular inventory, placing orders for stock items, cycling out old or expired products, etc.
Ensure that needed items are properly transferred from the production kitchen to the R&D kitchen
Own inventory of RTH ingredients in the R&D kitchen, including knowledge of where items are located, as well as tracking/storing items that are needed both near and long term
Work with Culinary Apprentices to help manage the grocery process, including communicating with all r&d kitchen personnel, making lists, shopping, and putting away groceries, as well as sourcing last minute items
Helping to order kitchen supplies, including speciality ingredients & kitchen equipment, directly from suppliers, production facilities and/or online sources
Become a resource for cross-functional teams

Meal and Ingredient R&D

Mise en place and execution of meals or compound ingredients as assigned by manager
Cook bench top rough draft formulations of compound ingredients to dial in viability for production (flavor, nutritionals, ease of execution, performance over time, etc.)
Assemble meals according to specifications
Take meal pictures, edit them and upload them into appropriate folders for both internal production photos and customer facing photos
Take compound ingredient photos and upload to appropriate folders
Participate in compound ingredient/meal feedback discussions and then work with manager to implement that feedback into formulation and procedure improvements
Refine ingredient amounts, recipe wording and timing to ensure compound ingredient/meal success
Scale recipes to full R&D batches for testing and further refinements to the formulation
Scale recipes to full production batches and test as needed at our production facility in Bedford Park
Scale non cooking kitchen or assembly operations at Bedford Park facility (ex. testing planetary mixer settings or refining assembly only compound ingredients)
Follow general food safety rules in the R&D kitchen
Follow all sanitation and GMP rules and food safety rules in the production kitchen
Respond to feedback from R&D chef, production chefs and other Product Team members to continuously improve output and workflows
Test new techniques to increase quality, yield, nutritionals and efficiency of compound ingredients