Application Specialist - Bakery

Job Description: Application Specialist – Industrial Bakery, Patisserie & Chocolate

About Puratos

Puratos is a global leader in bakery, patisserie, and chocolate solutions. We are committed to innovation, sustainability, and building long-term partnerships with our customers. Our application specialists play a key role in turning creative concepts into commercially viable products for industrial production environments.

Your Mission

As an Application Specialist at Puratos, you focus on developing and testing products, ensuring that innovations are feasible for commercial use, and providing tailored solutions to meet specific customer requirements – mainly at the industrial level in the bakery, patisserie, and chocolate sectors.

What You Do

• Support industrial bakeries and patisseries with high-end technical advice.
• Seek solutions to customers’ needs and help them implement products and concepts.
• Create strong, long-term partnerships with assigned accounts.
• Support the R&D Director in research and new product developments.
• Work with customers to understand their needs and co-create tailored solutions.
• Lead projects to deploy existing and new products at customers’ production facilities.
• Translate Puratos group guidelines for new product developments (NPDs) to the Kenya market, and support the introduction of new products through test baking, samples, and trainings.
• Identify and manage new business opportunities and risks to existing portfolios to support the business development team in reaching sales targets.
• Operate in a cross-functional team with local Technical, Marketing, and Sales colleagues, or alongside the international and diverse global network of Puratos. Use collaborative working tools and data analytics.
• Maintain baking and ingredient knowledge of current and up-and-coming trends, as well as a thorough understanding of all Puratos products.
• Build strong, long-term relationships at customers, and develop and maintain a network of ingredient and equipment experts both within Puratos and externally.

What We Expect from You

• Bachelor’s degree in food science or related field.
• 5 years hands-on experience in the industrial bakery sector.
• You have a passion for food and a strong drive to ‘do the right thing’ for the planet and future generations.
• Thorough understanding of the patisserie automation process, analytical techniques, and NPD processes, and the use of ingredients to create and improve healthy and delicious products.
• Understands functionality of ingredients, additives, and basic food chemistry.
• Computer skills and ability to use professional tools (CRM), spreadsheets, and presentation software.
• Good knowledge of process and equipment, and finished goods.
• Customer oriented, with a strong sense for business development.
• Ability to translate creative concepts into inspirational finished goods within the framework of an industrial production environment.
• Analytical skills and problem-solving attitude.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, able to inspire customers.
• Interdependent team player: respect others, helpful, open minded, dynamic, and modest.
• Proven planning and organization skills with good attention to detail.
• Flexibility to travel.