Product Development Lead

About the Role

Albaik Food Systems Co. is seeking a Product Development Lead to join its corporate Marketing team in Makkah, with operations spanning Jeddah and Makkah. This full-time role involves leading food product and menu development from concept to launch, ensuring alignment with brand strategy and customer insights to deliver profitable and scalable products. The position requires over 10 years of experience and focuses on maintaining quality, consistency, and operational feasibility across various markets.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain the menu strategy, define category priorities, and review the product portfolio using customer, market, commercial, and operational insights.
• Establish and maintain menu standards and structured processes for new product introductions, menu changes, product specifications, and documentation.
• Manage the innovation pipeline, develop product concepts and business cases, and lead recipe development and prototyping with relevant teams.
• Lead sensory, consumer, quality, shelf-life, cost, and restaurant-operability testing, using results to refine products before launch.
• Coordinate product launches across markets, including launch plans, readiness assessments, supply availability, training materials, and pilot execution.
• Guide regional menu adaptation and evaluate local product proposals while maintaining brand consistency, quality, and food-safety standards.
• Collaborate with Operations, Supply Chain, Quality and Food Safety, Finance, Procurement, and regional teams to achieve product cost, margin, availability, service speed, and customer-value objectives.
• Monitor post-launch sales, product mix, margins, customer feedback, quality, and operational performance, and recommend improvements.
• Develop and deliver training on product-development methods, menu standards, and new product introduction processes.
• Identify and address product, supplier, regulatory, allergen, food-safety, supply-capacity, and execution risks before launch.
• Lead cross-functional projects, manage timelines and priorities, resolve challenges, and communicate progress and performance to stakeholders.
• Track development milestones, innovation progress, launch readiness, standards compliance, regional review turnaround, and training effectiveness.

Qualifications and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Food Science, Culinary Arts, Hospitality Management, Business, Marketing, or a related field. A relevant postgraduate qualification is an advantage.
• Over 10 years of experience leading cross-functional product development and launches from concept through rollout and post-launch evaluation.
• Strong knowledge of structured product-development processes, sensory and consumer testing, recipe development, product specifications, and shelf-life testing.
• Knowledge of food costing, menu engineering, business-case development, and product profitability analysis.
• Understanding of restaurant operations, supplier collaboration, food safety, allergen controls, and relevant regulatory requirements.

Required Skills

• Strong project management skills, with the ability to manage multiple initiatives, priorities, and stakeholders across markets.
• Strategic thinking, creativity, commercial awareness, and the ability to translate customer and market insights into product opportunities.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, communication, presentation, and training skills, with attention to quality and detail.

Work Type

This is a full-time position based in Makkah, supporting operations in Jeddah and Makkah.

Compensation

Salary for this position will be disclosed during the interview process.