Food & Beverage Scientist

Job Title: Food & Beverage Scientist
Location: Lexington, KY (Relocation may be provided for the right candidate)
Job Type: Full Time | Exempt

Who You Are:
You’re a curious innovator with a passion for food science and product development. With a strong background in food and beverage manufacturing, you thrive in hands-on environments where creativity meets compliance. You bring deep knowledge of ingredient functionality, emulsions, and hydrocolloids, paired with the technical skill to scale formulations from the lab bench to full production. Whether running shelf-life studies, managing formulation data, or collaborating with cross-functional partners, you approach each challenge with precision, organization, and a problem-solving mindset. Above all, you’re excited to push boundaries in the growing cannabis edibles and beverages space while upholding the highest standards of quality, safety, and compliance.

What You’ll Do:

As a Food & Beverage Scientist, you’ll play a central role in developing and scaling innovative cannabis-infused products. You’ll conduct formulation trials, lead product testing, and support commercialization to bring new concepts to market. Your work will span from sensory evaluations to regulatory compliance, ensuring each product is safe, consistent, and high-quality. On any given day, you might be:

• Supporting the development, optimization, and scaling of cannabis-infused edibles and beverages through bench trials, pilot runs, and full-scale production
• Conducting sensory testing, shelf-life studies, and technical evaluations of texture, flavor, and stability using industry tools like viscometers and texture analyzers
• Maintaining SOPs, batch records, and technical documentation to streamline operations and support audits
• Ensuring compliance with GMP, food safety, labeling, and cannabis regulations, including coordinating third-party lab testing and interpreting results
• Managing formulation and ingredient data using MRP systems and formulation software for efficiency and accuracy
• Sharing data-driven insights that influence innovation, continuous improvement, and collaboration across the team

What You’ll Bring:

• 5–8 years of experience in food or beverage manufacturing
• A bachelor’s degree in Food Science, Chemistry, Food Chemistry, or a related field
• Hands-on experience in beverage formulation and scale-up, with knowledge of production equipment for both beverages and confections
• Strong understanding of ingredient functionality, food chemistry, emulsions, and hydrocolloids to design stable formulations
• Familiarity with GMPs, food safety, and regulatory requirements, with direct experience in sensory testing and shelf-life evaluations
• Excellent communication and documentation skills, paired with attention to detail and strong organizational abilities
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office and formulation software
• Willingness to travel up to 10% for trials, production support, and industry events

Even Better If:

• You have experience in the cannabis or hemp industry
• You’re familiar with ERP/MRP systems for managing formulations and ingredient tracking
• You bring experience applying data science or analytics to product development
• You’ve supported R&D trials and helped scale products from concept to commercialization

Physical Requirements:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. While performing the duties of this Job, the employee is regularly required to stand, walk, sit, talk or hear, use hands to finger or feel, reach with hands and arms, and lift up to 25 lbs. The employee is occasionally required to climb and balance, stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl and lift up to 50 lbs. This position requires close vision, distance vision, peripheral vision, depth perception and the ability to adjust focus.

Work Environment:

This position has allergen warnings, potential exposure to dust, pollen, and plant pathogens, requires exposure to cleaning solvents, such as high volumes of isopropyl alcohol, requires daily use of provided PPE, such as masks, hair nets, beard covers, respirators, boot covers, scrubs, non-slip shoes, and Tyvek suits as necessary, requires the ability to work in confined spaces, has exposure to loud noises, including but not limited to air compressors, packaging equipment, and alarms, has exposure to CO2 manufacturing procedures at OSHA approved CO2 levels and requires a high stress tolerance, adaptability, and flexibility. Ability to work in an ever-changing environment.

Curaleaf Pay Transparency 78000 - 87000 USD