Demo

Senior Food Scientist, Protein

Cargill
Cargill Salary
Wichita, KS Full Time
POSTED ON 9/3/2026
AVAILABLE BEFORE 10/1/2026
Cargill is a family company committed to providing food and agricultural solutions to nourish the world in a safe, responsible, and sustainable way. We sit at the heart of the supply chain, partnering with producers and customers to source, make and deliver products that are vital for living. By providing customers with life’s essentials, we enable businesses to grow, communities to prosper, and consumers to live well.

This position is in our Food Enterprise where we are committed to serving food manufacturers, food service customers, and retailers with a complete range of innovative ingredients and branded products. Our portfolio includes poultry, beef, egg, alternative protein, salt, oils, starches, sweeteners, cocoa and chocolate.

Job Purpose and Impact

The Senior Food Scientist, Protein leads the development, commercialization, and optimization of fresh beef products for retail and foodservice customers across North America. This role serves as a technical leader within Protein R&D, partnering closely with customers, commercial teams, operations, and cross-functional partners to identify opportunities, solve complex technical challenges, and deliver business results. In this role you will influence product solutions in fresh beef processing. You will identify opportunities to optimize manufacturing and processing capabilities to recommend solutions that support fresh beef business growth, improve product performance, and strengthen customer partnerships. In addition to leading significant development initiatives, this role is expected to coach and mentor other scientists, independently influence technical decisions across functions, and help build organizational capability through knowledge sharing and technical expertise.

Key Accountabilities

  • Provide technical leadership for product and process development initiatives, proactively recommending solutions and guiding teams through complex technical decisions while ensuring alignment with business strategy, quality standards, and regulatory requirements.
  • Identify product growth and new product opportunities in fresh beef processing; adapt plans to capitalize on emerging trends and market demands. Lead scale-up and product qualification activities at manufacturing facilities, ensuring solutions meet quality, food safety, operational, and cost expectations.
  • Support the development and execution of innovation roadmaps and market plans aligned with overall business growth strategy.
  • Build strong partnerships across R&D, sales, marketing, operations, supply chain, quality, regulatory, and business teams to align priorities and drive successful project execution. Develop trusted relationships with customers and commercial partners, representing R&D in customer discussions, technical reviews, plant trials, and innovation initiatives.
  • Maintain and expand technical expertise through scientific literature, industry trends, and emerging technologies, applying new knowledge to business challenges and opportunities and documentation of work for future applications.
  • Coach and mentor scientists and cross-functional partners by sharing technical expertise, providing guidance on project execution, and helping strengthen team capability.
  • Independently handle complex issues with minimal supervision, while escalating only the most complex issues to appropriate staff.
  • Other duties as assigned

Qualifications

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

  • Bachelor’s degree in a related field or equivalent experience
  • Minimum of four years of related work experience
  • Ability to travel up to 30% to customer and manufacturing locations
  • Previous protein experience
  • Ability to occasionally work in a refrigerated environment

Preferred Qualifications

  • Master's degree or other post-secondary degree
  • Experience in meat product development, sensory evaluation, and food safety
  • Fresh beef experience
  • Previous operations experience
  • Ability to present research to all levels within an organization
  • Experience communicating to both technical and non-technical audiences
  • Experience leading change initiatives

#themuse #fgb

Equal Opportunity Employer, including Disability/Vet

To apply using chat/text, please click Apply Now button OR use this link to create a login to apply.

Salary.com Estimation for Senior Food Scientist, Protein in Wichita, KS
$87,222 to $110,051
If your compensation planning software is too rigid to deploy winning incentive strategies, it’s time to find an adaptable solution. Compensation Planning
Enhance your organization's compensation strategy with salary data sets that HR and team managers can use to pay your staff right. Surveys & Data Sets

What is the career path for a Senior Food Scientist, Protein?

Sign up to receive alerts about other jobs on the Senior Food Scientist, Protein career path by checking the boxes next to the positions that interest you.
Income Estimation: 
$94,832 - $129,336
Income Estimation: 
$133,998 - $173,872
Income Estimation: 
$94,832 - $129,336
Income Estimation: 
$133,998 - $173,872
Employees: Get a Salary Increase
View Core, Job Family, and Industry Job Skills and Competency Data for more than 15,000 Job Titles Skills Library

Job openings at Cargill

  • Cargill Fargo, ND
  • Cargill is a family company committed to providing food and agricultural solutions to nourish the world in a safe, responsible, and sustainable way. We sit... more
  • Just Posted

  • Cargill Schuyler, NE
  • Cargill is a family company committed to providing food and agricultural solutions to nourish the world in a safe, responsible, and sustainable way. We sit... more
  • Just Posted

  • Cargill Columbus, NE
  • Job Purpose and Impact The Professional, Software Engineering job maintains and partners to design and develop software applications and systems. With limi... more
  • Just Posted

  • Cargill Nebraska, NE
  • Cargill is committed to providing food and agricultural solutions to nourish the world in a safe, responsible, and sustainable way. Sitting at the heart of... more
  • Just Posted


Not the job you're looking for? Here are some other Senior Food Scientist, Protein jobs in the Wichita, KS area that may be a better fit.

  • Cargill Wichita, KS
  • Cargill is a family company committed to providing food and agricultural solutions to nourish the world in a safe, responsible, and sustainable way. We sit... more
  • 18 Days Ago

  • Flora Food Group Liberal, KS
  • Location: On-Site at Hugoton, KS Factory Reports To: Pilot Plant Supervisor / Senior R&D Manager About the Role We're looking for a Food Scientist to suppo... more
  • 2 Months Ago

AI Assistant is available now!

Feel free to start your new journey!