R&D & Innovation Manager
Temple Lifestyle Brands is building Canada’s leading functional beverage platform. With powerhouse brands like Thirsty Buddha® and Rise® Kombucha, we’re driving category growth and consumer love nationwide.
We are one of Canada’s fastest-growing health and wellness companies, home to a powerful portfolio of functional beverage brands including Thirsty Buddha® (Canada’s #1 organic coconut water and leader in functional hydration) and Rise® Kombucha (Canada’s pioneering kombucha brand and category leader).
With diversified manufacturing capabilities, a strong commercial engine, and national omnichannel distribution, Temple is redefining better-for-you beverages and inspiring healthier living across the country.
COMPANY: Temple Lifestyle Brands
LOCATION: Toronto or Montreal (Full-Time)
DEPARTMENT: R&D Innovation
REPORTS TO: Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
TRAVEL: Occasional domestic travel and international travel (less than 5%)
THE OPPORTUNITY
The R&D & Innovation Manager will lead research, product development, formulation, and technical innovation across the entire Temple Lifestyle Brands portfolio - spanning our existing brands, private label partnerships, and the development of future brands and products.
This is a highly visible, hands-on role responsible for helping turn ideas into exceptional, commercially viable products. From early-stage formulation and sensory development through plant trials, scale-up, commercialization, and continuous improvement, this individual will serve as a key technical leader across our innovation pipeline.
The successful candidate will combine strong scientific and product development expertise with real manufacturing-floor experience. This is not a lab-only role. We are looking for someone equally comfortable developing formulations, evaluating products at the bench, leading plant trials, troubleshooting production challenges, and partnering cross-functionally to bring products successfully to market.
Working closely with Marketing, Commercial, Production, Brewing, Quality, Supply Chain and Procurement, the R&D & Innovation Manager will help build a disciplined and scalable innovation capability capable of supporting Temple's existing brands, private label customers, and future growth platforms.
The ideal candidate brings deep experience in beverage, fermentation, brewing, dairy, functional foods, or other biologically active food systems, along with strong sensory capabilities, scientific curiosity, commercial awareness, and a passion for building exceptional products.
WHAT YOU’LL DO?
Product Development & Innovation
Lead formulation and product development across Temple Lifestyle Brands, including existing brands, new brands, line extensions, renovations, private label opportunities, and new beverage platforms.
Own the technical development process from concept and benchtop formulation through pilot testing, scale-up, commercialization, and post-launch optimization.
Establish and manage a disciplined innovation pipeline in partnership with Marketing and Commercial teams, balancing consumer opportunity, technical feasibility, speed to market, margin, and manufacturing capability.
Translate brand, consumer, and customer opportunities into technically feasible and commercially scalable products.
Develop and optimize formulations for taste, functionality, nutritional profile, stability, manufacturability, shelf life, quality, and cost.
Lead technical development for private label opportunities, working cross-functionally to translate customer briefs into commercially viable products.
Lead sensory evaluation, benchmarking, competitive product assessment, and consumer product testing initiatives.
Identify and evaluate emerging ingredients, technologies, functional benefits, processing methods, and beverage trends that can support future portfolio growth.
Commercialization & Scale-Up
Lead the technical commercialization of new products from laboratory development through full-scale manufacturing.
Design and execute plant trials and scale-up protocols, ensuring formulations and processes successfully translate to commercial production.
Partner closely with Production, Brewing, Quality, Supply Chain, Procurement, Marketing, and Commercial teams to ensure launch readiness.
Establish clear technical specifications, formulations, processing parameters, and documentation required for successful manufacturing handover.
Provide hands-on technical support during first production runs and troubleshoot formulation or process challenges as products scale.
Conduct post-launch reviews and optimize products and processes based on manufacturing performance, quality, consumer feedback, and commercial requirements.
Process Development & Continuous Improvement
Lead and support technical process improvement initiatives related to fermentation, yield, throughput, consistency, quality, and cost.
Partner with Brewing and Production teams to investigate technical challenges, identify root causes, and develop practical solutions.
Apply scientific methodology and structured experimentation to improve existing formulations and manufacturing processes.
Identify opportunities to reduce ingredient costs, waste, processing time, and manufacturing complexity without compromising product quality.
Continuously improve existing products to ensure they remain best-in-class for taste, quality, performance, and economics.
Technical & Scientific Leadership
Serve as a key technical resource across Temple Lifestyle Brands for formulation, ingredient functionality, fermentation science, beverage processing, and product performance.
Lead shelf-life, stability, sensory, and product validation studies.
Partner with Quality and Regulatory resources to ensure new and renovated products meet applicable food safety, regulatory, labeling, certification, and product specification requirements.
Support the technical evaluation and qualification of new ingredients and suppliers in partnership with Procurement and Quality.
Develop and maintain accurate formulations, specifications, technical reports, experimental results, and commercialization documentation.
Build and protect institutional knowledge related to formulations, processes, experiments, learnings, and product development.
Scientific Research & SR&ED Management
Identify, structure, and lead eligible Scientific Research & Experimental Development (SR&ED) initiatives across Temple Lifestyle Brands.
Develop systems and processes to ensure technical experimentation, formulation development, fermentation optimization, process development, and eligible continuous improvement activities are identified and properly documented throughout the year.
Establish appropriate scientific methodology around eligible projects, including technical uncertainties, hypotheses, experiments, observations, results, conclusions, and subsequent development work.
Maintain detailed and contemporaneous technical records, testing protocols, experimental data, project documentation, and supporting evidence required for SR&ED claims.
Partner with Finance and external SR&ED advisors to identify eligible projects and expenditures and support the preparation of federal and provincial SR&ED claims.
Lead the technical components of annual SR&ED submissions and support technical reviews, inquiries, and audits when required.
Build SR&ED documentation into the normal R&D workflow so eligible work is captured consistently rather than reconstructed at year-end.
Leadership & Team Development
Lead, coach, and develop current and future R&D team members as the function grows.
Build the processes, tools, documentation, and operating disciplines required to create a scalable R&D capability across Temple Lifestyle Brands.
Foster a culture of innovation, accountability, scientific rigor, curiosity, experimentation, and continuous improvement.
Build organizational capability in formulation, product development, commercialization, sensory evaluation, and technical problem-solving.
Set clear priorities and accountability across the R&D pipeline, ensuring resources are focused on the highest-value opportunities.
Act as a strong cross-functional leader, bringing together Commercial, Marketing, Operations, Quality, and Supply Chain around successful product development and commercialization.
WHAT YOU BRING
Education
Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Food Science, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Microbiology, Chemical Engineering, or a related scientific discipline.
Advanced scientific or technical education is considered an asset.
Experience
7+ years of progressive experience in R&D, product development, or technical innovation within beverage, brewing, fermentation, dairy, functional foods, or food manufacturing.
Demonstrated experience developing and commercializing products from benchtop formulation through full-scale manufacturing.
Strong hands-on experience working directly within manufacturing and production environments is essential.
Experience with fermentation systems or biologically active food systems is strongly preferred.
Experience developing products across multiple brands, categories, or customer briefs, including private label, is considered a strong asset.
Experience leading or developing R&D teams and building structured innovation processes is preferred.
Experience supporting SR&ED or similar scientific research tax credit programs is considered a strong asset.
Technical Skills
Strong understanding of beverage formulation, ingredient functionality, beverage processing, and fermentation science.
Strong knowledge of experimental design, scientific methodology, product validation, and technical documentation.
Experience with scale-up, commercialization, process optimization, root-cause analysis, and manufacturing troubleshooting.
Strong sensory evaluation skills and demonstrated product/taste intuition.
Experience conducting shelf-life and stability studies and developing product specifications.
Strong understanding of the relationship between formulation, manufacturing processes, quality, cost, and commercial scalability.
Familiarity with Canadian food regulations, labeling requirements, and product development compliance considerations.
Familiarity with SR&ED eligibility and technical documentation requirements is considered an asset.
Leadership & Soft Skills
Hands-on, entrepreneurial, and solutions-oriented leadership style.
Strong scientific curiosity combined with commercial and consumer awareness.
Ability to move comfortably between the laboratory, production floor, and cross-functional business discussions.
Strong project management skills with the ability to manage multiple development programs and priorities simultaneously.
Excellent cross-functional collaboration and communication skills.
Comfortable challenging assumptions, experimenting, learning quickly, and solving complex technical problems.
Thrives in a fast-paced, evolving growth environment where processes and capabilities are still being built.
Additional Qualifications
Bilingualism (English/French) preferred.
Passion for health, wellness, functional beverages, and better-for-you innovation.
