Packaging Engineer

Company: Post Holdings
Location: Saint Louis
Posted on: June 13, 2021

Job Description:

About 8th Avenue

8th Avenue is a leading, private brand-centric consumer products holding company, manufacturing and selling private brand food products primarily to retail, foodservice, and ingredient customers. 8th Avenue Food & Provisions was formed in October 2018 through a combination of Post Holdings' private brands businesses. The company is owned by Post Holdings and funds affiliated with Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P. ("THL"), a private equity firm.

Are you looking for us?

The feeling of pride you get when you see something you made being used to nurture the community around you is something you can't replace. That's what 8th Avenue Food & Provisions can do for you!

We are not only passionate about the products we make, but we also take pride in what we do! We believe it's what's inside that counts. Whether it's inside our packaging or inside our facilities, you'll find carefully chosen ingredients and people working together to make the best products possible.

We are a growing organization made up of businesses that produce quality products like Pasta, Peanut Butter, Fruit and Nut trail mixes, Granola, and a variety of other food products.

We're looking for you! This is an exciting time to join our growing organization!

Position Summary:

This role is accountable for ensuring the 8th Avenue portfolio is supported by packaging solutions that are highly functional, consumer-intuitive, cost-optimized, innovative, and adhere to company standards and industry conventions. The ideal candidate possesses deep technical knowledge of the food packaging space, including packaging design (features, functionalities, and limitations), material/ component specifications, artwork/label design while optimizing cost & operational interactions. An ideal candidate will have a strong attention to detail, an awareness of consumer insights, and an understanding of the impact to the company's P&L. This role supports Branded and Private Label Pasta as primary areas of responsibility, while sharing available time with 8th Avenue's remaining Private Label business units and product lines.

Duties and Responsibilities:

Packaging portfolio stewardship & optimization

• Maintain packaging bill-of-materials and specifications for existing portfolio, including primary/secondary packaging and labels.
• Establish and maintain a database of current primary and secondary packaging specifications; work with business units to optimize offerings and reduce redundancy / duplication in packaging specifications.
• Proactively assess and quantify cost optimization potential across items in the portfolio.
• Ensure packaging portfolio optimizes transportation, product stability, and display requirements are designed to be compatible with production lines.
• Ensures compliance with all internal and external/regulatory requirements.
• Supports company's environmental sustainability targets.
• Other duties, as assigned be management.

New package development & innovation

• Collaborate with Sales, Product Management, Finance, and Operations to explore and commercialize new products (including those with packaging-inspired innovations).
• Participate in cost/appeal tradeoff assessments.
• Contribute to the Stage Gate process to ensure packaging requirements are defined and developed in an effective and timely manner.
• Conduct hands-on bench and pilot scale tests to help assess packaging performance, shelf-life, and quality attributes.
• Establish expert knowledge of various packaging materials / substrates - their features, functionalities, limitations, and production line feasibility.

Quality assurance and supplier management

• Match appropriate inks and print technologies to desired graphics to ensure effective translation to packaging substrates.
• Validation tests to ensure packaging suppliers are meeting specified standards.
• Work with Procurement to continually assess, nurture, and optimize supplier relationships.

Education and Experience Required:

• B.S. in Packaging Engineering / Packaging Science, or related field.
• Certification in Packaging Engineering or Packaging Science plus 7 years' experience.
• Recognized as an in-house authority on packaging systems.
• Strong teamwork, problem solving, and presentation skills.
• Advanced PC skills: Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Experience with JDE, statistical software desired.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, conflict resolution, and interpersonal skills.
• Strong project planning and management skills, ability to lead teams and multiple simultaneous projects effectively.
• Able to be decisive and repeatedly meet deadlines.
• Able to remove barriers.
• Highly motivated individual with ability to work in a fast-paced environment.
• Ability to travel 30-50% is required.

Preferred Education, Experience, and Skills:

• Proven communications ability with all levels of management.
• Proven leadership in managing new package development.
• Demonstrated ability to coach and influence others.

Keywords: Post Holdings, St. Louis , Packaging Engineer, Other , Saint Louis, Missouri