Food Scientist

Position Title:Food Scientist

Position Type: Regular - Full-Time ​

Requisition ID: 39450 

Food Scientist.

About McCain.

At McCain, we’re feeding the world: from French fries to Smiles, we contribute to the important role food plays in people's lives. That’s why we’re dedicated to ensuring our core values—Family, Authentic, Trusted, and Quality—shine through every day. As a privately owned family company with over 60 years of experience, a presence in more than 160 countries, and a global team of 22,000 people, our values and culture are at the heart of everything we do. We believe that we can work together, along with our business and community partners, to bring sustainable growth and positive change today, tomorrow, and for generations to come. Join us and see how you can MAKE IT at McCain!

Why join the McCain family.

• Your Life – we’re here to help you fulfil your potential, flourish, and thrive in work and life.
• Your Success – work alongside passionate individuals who are committed to supporting your career ambitions, drive, and success.
• Your Impact – we want you to make a meaningful, lasting impact for you, for your colleagues, and for the business.

About the role.

In every role, McCainers are ambitious, curious, and interested in helping each other create good work experiences. We think about the customer and make doing business with McCain easy.

At McCain, we’re passionate about creating food that people love and trust. As a Food Scientist, you’ll be at the heart of that mission—working with our global teams to make sure every product that leaves our doors is safe, delicious, and meets our world-class standards. Food safety isn’t just a box we tick—it’s our top priority.

In this role, you’ll collaborate with brilliant minds across the UK and around the globe, partnering with our Research & Development teams to shape new product, process, and ingredient specifications. You’ll play a key role in driving innovation, continuously improving our standards, and ensuring that McCain products remain the best on the market.

Your curiosity and creativity will be your biggest assets—helping us discover smarter, better ways of working every single day.

Leadership Principles.

Our principles, each with related practices, guide our actions across the organisation. Together, they address how McCain interacts with our customers and employees, and how we work as individuals and collectively to find success. While each role adheres to the Leadership Principles, individual roles may focus more on a specific principle or principles.

We are customer obsessed. Customers are our starting point. By understanding their needs and leveraging data and consumer insights, we drive mutual success.

We think big and plan ahead. Through ambition, curiosity, and smart risks, we can accomplish goals, refine processes, and innovate to scale success.

We bring out the best in our people. We create safe spaces for our people so that trust and empowerment come naturally. Inclusion is about listening first, showing humility, and working together.

We act like owners. Together, we clear obstacles and do the work that makes us all successful and proud to be part of McCain.

Accountabilities.

We’re looking for someone who’s more than just skilled — we want someone who’s curious, collaborative, and passionate about great food! Here’s what we’d love you to bring to the table:

• A specs superstar: You’ve got hands-on experience using specification systems to create accurate product, process, and ingredient specs that keep everything running smoothly.
• A natural communicator: You know how to grab attention, build relationships, and thrive when working with a variety of teams — from Product Development and Quality to Manufacturing, Procurement, Packaging, and Suppliers.
• Detail-driven and packaging-savvy: You’ve worked on ingredient statements, cooking instructions, and nutrition data — ensuring our packaging always hits the mark.
• Regulatory know-how: You understand the ins and outs of food industry regulations — from nutrition and microbiological standards to labelling and preparation requirements.
• Project team pro: You’re organized, reliable, and have that all-important start-to-finish mindset that gets results.
• Motivated and contagious: Your energy and enthusiasm inspire those around you to raise the bar.
• Creative problem-solver: You see challenges as opportunities and always bring solutions to the table.
• Culturally savvy: You’re adaptable and comfortable working across regions and teams with different ways of thinking and doing.
• Bold and curious: You ask the big questions, challenge the norm, and never stop learning.

Location.

Being in the office every single day is a thing of the past. Here at McCain, we champion hybrid working. This means we don’t have a set expectation of exactly when you need to be in the office – however we do encourage our full-time, office-based people to connect in person with others for around half of their working time as that’s the best way for us to build and maintain our connections. Our head office (Customer Experience Centre) is on the outskirts of Scarborough – 1.5 hours away from Leeds City Centre, and about an hour from York. We have lots of colleagues who travel to and from our Experience Centre (even if it is just for a good coffee!) and because hybrid really does mean hybrid at McCain, they get the opportunity to collaborate with their colleagues when they’re in the office, and balance that with working from home to ensure they get a good life-work balance.

The benefits of working for McCain.

Although we do encourage you to taste the goods you’ll be pleased to know we don’t pay you in ‘chips’. For working hard, you’ll also get a great salary and some pretty good benefits including:

• An excellent pension where we will pay double what you do, up to a maximum of 12% of your pay
• Flexible holidays – where you can buy & sell up to 5 days holiday per year
• Optional health cash plan
• Cycle to work scheme
• ‘Chips In’ Volunteering Day Off - to make a positive impact to the competitiveness, resilience, and long-term development of McCain communities across the globe

And of course, being part of a Global business there are great opportunities to shine/thrive should you wish to relocate in the future. We have an ambitious 5-year growth plan that presents development & progression opportunities for those who seek it out.

The McCain experience.

We are McCain: this statement is about our power collectively and our importance individually—your impact is a significant part of the business. Our winning culture focuses on authenticity and trust so we can always bring out the best in our people. Here, you have the opportunity to learn, grow, and thrive while being yourself. Join our team to see why we’re better together.

#LI-OW1

McCain Foods is an equal opportunity employer. As a global family-owned company, we strive to be the employer of choice in the diverse communities around the world in which we live and work. We recognize that inclusion drives our creativity, resilience, and success and makes our business stronger. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, age, veteran status, disability, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law.

McCain is an accessible employer. If you require an accommodation throughout the recruitment process (including alternate formats of materials or accessible meeting rooms), please let us know and we will work with you to find appropriate solutions. 

Your privacy is important to us. By submitting personal data or information to us, you agree this will be handled in accordance with McCain’s Global Privacy Policy and Global Employee Privacy Policy, as applicable. You can understand how your personal information is being handled here. 

Job Family: Research & Development

Location(s): GB - United Kingdom : England : Scarborough
GB - United Kingdom : England : Hull
GB - United Kingdom : England : Kingston-upon-Hull*
GB - United Kingdom : England : Leeds*
GB - United Kingdom : England : York*  

Company: McCain Foods (G.B.) Ltd