**About Woolworths Group**
Woolworths Group is a food and everyday needs retailer united by the shared purpose of creating better experiences together for a better tomorrow. With more than 1,400 stores across its Woolworths Supermarkets, Countdown Supermarkets (New Zealand) and BIG W brands, and fast-growing eCommerce businesses, Woolworths Group is Australia and New Zealand's largest retailer. A top 10 company on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), Woolworths Group employs more than 180,000 team members and serves more than 20 million customers a week.
**Customer & Sensory Insights Researcher - Attention Passionate Foodies
- Work with one of Australia's largest retail in-house development teams
- Influence product development plans with your sensory, culinary and research expertise
- True hybrid working with collaborative workspaces in Norwest
- Supportive, caring team promoting career development
**Are you passionate about product, food and customer?
Our team is on the lookout for experienced new talent to join some of the most innovative developers and quality technical specialists in Australia.
Our innovative and high-performing Product Development team work at the cutting edge of development to deliver on our own brand food, non-food and packaging sustainability commitments, contributing to the global sustainability agenda and supporting the health of Australians, through our commitment to Healthiest Own Brand.
Working within the Woolworths product and innovation chapter you will utilise your sensory, culinary, and research expertise to provide our product teams with meaningful insights.
**Who we are
Woolworths Food Company (WFC) is a holistic B2B platform business, the own brand supplier and a manufacturer to our retail brands (Woolworths Supermarkets, Countdown Supermarkets and Metro Stores). WFC also supports and grows our non-retail and B2B channels, in Foodservice and Wholesale & International.
Daily, we deliver on our purpose - "Together we innovate to create distinctive products and brands that customers love"
**About the Role
We have an opportunity for a sensory scientist to lead end-to-end execution of qualitative and internal sensory benchmarking projects for product insights - from understanding the objectives to developing the methodology, writing the questionnaire/discussion guides to delivering insightful & actionable reports.
You will liaise with product teams on their requests for research and sensory projects to support NPD strategy and upgrade the quality of our existing range that improves the quality of Woolworths products.
This is an 18-month parental leave contract with a view to extension and future career opportunities within the WFC team and Woolworths Ecosystem.
Key responsibilities include
- Conducting customer research (mainly qualitative) to obtain sensory and product insights
- Moderating group sessions with consumers and internal stakeholders to elicit sensory attributes
- Facilitating internal product development and interdisciplinary teams to develop sensory attributes for their products and generate awareness of the attributes that are important to customers
- Work with the Customer Sensory team to create a world-leading customer research and sensory program for product development.
- Be a member of our Woolworths Group customer community to learn, share knowledge and be a customer advocate
**About You
You bring experience working with research agencies with FMCG clients or companies with their own 'in-house' research services.
You are well organised and demonstrate experience in seeing projects through from inception to delivery, keeping to project scope and timelines and pride yourself on your excellent communication and presentation skills to ensure insights are clearly communicated and incorporated into strategy.
Desirable skills and attributes will include:
- Degree in food science, market research or a related discipline
- 3+ years experience in sensory and consumer testing of products
- Experience in using qualitative techniques to moderate both customer and internal panels
- Strong stakeholder management skills and the ability to build positive relationships across a matrix organisation
- Experience using research software Compusense, Qualtrics, Q Research Software, digital qualitative platforms, Excel, G-Suite is preferred
- Good project management skills and the ability to effectively juggle multiple and competing priorities
- Strong communication and presentation skills
**Grow with the Group
As an inclusive, team-first company, our people are at the core of everything we do.
We care deeply about creating a workplace where our team members feel valued, respected and empowered. We are committed to providing equal opportunity regardless of gender identity, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation or life stage. We are proud to be recognised as a Gold Tier Employer in the Australian Workplace Equality Index for LGBTQ+ inclusi