Job Description

Overview

The R&D Pastry Lead is a key role within Plain Vanilla's Central Kitchen, responsible for driving pastry innovation, developing new products, and ensuring the highest standards of recipe documentation and quality. This position combines hands-on pastry expertise with structured research, testing, and training, ensuring that new products are successfully integrated into production and consistently delivered across all outlets.

Key Responsibilities

1. Research & Development

Lead the ideation, development, and testing of new pastry products in line with brand identity, customer trends, and campaign calendars. Conduct trials, evaluate results, and refine recipes for scalability and operational feasibility. Benchmark recipes against seasonal campaigns and competitor offerings to ensure market relevance.

2. Recipe Documentation & Playbook

Create, update, and maintain a comprehensive recipe SOP library, including step-by-step methods, photos, and plating guidelines. Ensure version control and standardisation across all recipe documents. Develop and maintain a Pastry Development Playbook to serve as a training and reference guide for the team.

3. Training & Capability Development

Train CK and store-level teams on new product execution and pastry standards. Create visual guides and training modules to ensure knowledge transfer and consistency. Mentor pastry team members to strengthen innovation capability and technical knowledge.

4. Production Integration & Quality Control

Oversee production runs for new products, ensuring recipes can be executed at scale without compromising quality. Conduct quality control (QC) checks during production runs to ensure consistency, taste, presentation, and shelf-life stability. Collaborate with Production Managers and FOH leadership to ensure seamless rollout and feedback loops for new products.

5. Continuous Improvement & Cross-Functional Collaboration

Partner with Brand, Culinary, and Operations teams to align R&D output with business strategy and customer experience goals. Review and refine existing pastry recipes to improve efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and product quality. Monitor customer and team feedback to inform future innovation cycles.

Requirements

Diploma or higher in Pastry & Baking Arts or equivalent professional training is advantageous. Prior hands-on pastry experience required. Prior experience in an R&D or product development role is advantageous. Strong technical knowledge of pastry techniques, ingredients, and production scaling. Excellent documentation, training, and communication skills. * Highly organised, detail-oriented, and able to balance creativity with operational feasibility.