Laboratory Manager – Food & Nutrition

Laboratory Manager – Food & Nutrition

IMCD is a leading global distributor and formulator of specialty chemicals and ingredients. An entrepreneurial group founded IMCD in 1995 in the Netherlands. Our vision to transform the distribution industry by continuously adding value to the supply chain through expertise and innovation is what still drives us today.
Today, we have operations in over 50 countries, where we successfully combine local knowledge with global expertise to obtain sustainable results. IMCD is a strong, innovative business partner and accelerator of solutions for suppliers and producers of consumer, industrial and durable goods in diverse business sectors. Our commercial excellence and solid operations structure facilitate healthy growth.

The position
The Laboratory Manager will operate as a one-person lab, taking full ownership of both technical and operational responsibilities. The "Laboratory Manager" will be instrumental in advancing IMCD’s ambition to become a leading formulation solutions provider, leveraging technical insights and a strong understanding of market trends, consumer behavior, and customer needs. Based at the local IMCD Food & Nutrition Applications Lab in İstanbul, the role will deliver both local proactive and dynamic reactive support services, reporting locally to the Business Unit Manager.

The Laboratory Manager will be accountable for:

Customer engagement: provide local, responsive technical support to the sales team and customer base by delivering formulation solutions tailored to the customers’ new product development needs.
Market insights for strategic growth: act as a sparring partner for innovation, fostering strong, trust-based collaboration with customers’ R&D and marketing teams.
Technical project pipeline and value creation: partner with the sales team to manage a robust pipeline of technical projects, ensuring alignment with strategic growth objectives and key performance indicators.
Knowledge development and sharing: strengthen formulation expertise through active participation in Turkiye market-specific technical core teams, proactively generating new formulation insights to support local growth plans and drive project conversion.

Specific responsibilities are:
Build deep expertise in IMCD’s ingredient portfolio and create cross-offering opportunities for the commercial team.
Provide formulation expertise and hands-on support to the sales team and customers’ R&D, acting as a trusted innovation partner.
Conduct formulation work in the Applications Lab as an application scientist to advance key projects.
Collaborate with local business unit and product managers to design inspirational formulation concepts aligned with market trends, supplier opportunities, and customer needs, while organizing and supporting customer seminars and promotional events to enhance IMCD experts’ visibility and strengthen the project pipeline
Work closely with the sales team, as needed, to support customer visits and provide technical assistance.
Collaborate in global technical core teams to prevent duplication of work, understand market dynamics, expand formulation expertise (ingredients, recipe, process), and share best practices.
Transfer market and formulation knowledge to the local commercial team through internal technical training under the IMCD Food & Nutrition Academy.
Enhance IMCD’s digital capabilities by formulating within the digital platform, enriching and organizing formulation knowledge, and making this is readily available for users.
Build on and further develop strong existing relationships with the technical experts of the suppliers.

The candidate
IMCD is looking for an ambitious, talented person seeking a technical career in ingredients and applications. Ideal candidates have a Master’s degree in Food Technology or related area and a solid proven track record in a technical role in a business-to-business environment.

A good knowledge of the respective markets and key applications (recipes and processes), and experience in food ingredients is a prerequisite for success. Besides having a solution oriented attitude and background, the position requires a consultative, in-depth technical background.
Candidates have excellent communication, planning and organizational skills, pro-active mind set, feeling energized in dealing with sales colleagues, customers and suppliers in order to fully exploit the capabilities of IMCD.