Graduate Sensory Panel Leader

Looking to grow and develop your career and skills in Sensory Research? Then this may be the opportunity you are looking for...

We’re searching for a Graduate Sensory Panel Leader to join our Sensory Science Centre (SSC) based in Singapore.

MMR is an independent, global consumer and sensory research agency specialising in food, drink, personal and household care research. This means that when you join us, you’ll have the chance to work with well-known brands to help create, shape and develop products and packs.

We’re global leaders, guiding innovation for our clients – partnering with over 50% of the top 100 global food and drink brands. Our head office is in a beautiful 18th century barn in Wallingford - a picturesque village in between Oxford and Reading. We also have offices in London, New York, Shanghai, Mumbai, Sao Paulo, Amsterdam, Bangkok and Durban.

As part of the MMR Sensory Science Centre (SSC) This role will cover everything from being involved in proposals, costing and planning projects, organizing the panel schedules, leading panel sessions, oversight of data collection and panel performance monitoring and ensuring that panel procedures are compliant with food hygiene standards, through to client liaison, report writing, and project debriefs.

Within the sensory team at MMR, we pride ourselves on being inquisitive, in generating robust, and repeatable sensory data and providing our clients with engaging and meaningful diagnostics and commercially orientated reports. Your role will be to learn how to make this happen!

Panel Leading

• To oversee the running of panel sessions whether by self, or in assistance of a senior colleague(e.g. Sensory Consultant or another visiting MMR PL colleague)
  
• To be responsible for the daily running of the Sensory Panels including:
• Weekly planning meetings, kick off/analysis/report/post-mortem meetings for each project.
• To plan all panel sessions, including creation of any relevant paperwork, before each session and log this in the project management file.
• In conjunction with the Panel Assistant to be responsible for preparing samples / materials for panel training and profiling.
  
• In conjunction with the Panel Assistant to manage the delivery of research products to SSC, to check that the products are correct upon arrival and to ensure that they are inventoried on arrival and stored correctly.
• To prepare panel profiling sessions including the use of @hand both designing and checking @hand files.
• To ensure that every project has a Project Management file and that this is established before commencing a project. To ensure that stats is fully briefed about upcoming project work and any non-standard analysis which is required–i.e. beyond the scope of the analysis app.
  
• Analysis of training check data in order to develop retraining plans and ensure robust data.
• In conjunction with the Panel Assistant to ensure that all SSC working areas are prepared appropriately in good time for each session and cleared/cleaned after. Includes managing requests from other parties for use of the SSC space.
  
• In conjunction with the Panel Assistant to ensure that all activities carried out comply with basic food hygiene standards in order to work safely within the laboratory. Basic food hygiene training will be provided.
  
• Running Panellist screening sessions–liaising with HR on all stages of recruitment and keeping Sensory Lead informed.

Project and client management, data management and report and proposal writing

• Day to day project related client liaison–being a point of contact for clients on confirmed projects.
• Working with the Sensory Lead to create engaging proposals and design research to achieve all client goals in the most cost and time effective manner
• Working with the Sensory Lead to provide innovative sensory solutions to client’s research problems and requirements:
• This includes being agile in addressing problems as they arise and ensuring that projects are completed on time
• Working with the Sensory Lead in the creation of engaging reports and debriefing reports to clients
• Report writing is not your sole responsibility; however, this role does include responsibility for ensuring that excellent data analysis, interpretation and reporting occurs for every project.
• Managing the panel’s performance and to ensure that panel feedback occurs on a regular basis:
• To conduct quarterly reviews of the overall performance of the panels to ensure client and MMR KPIs are met.
• To plan/organize and run an on-going training schedule, outside projects, to develop and enhance the panels capabilities.

Requirements

Required qualifications and skills

• Sensory foundation in Sensory Principles (IFST)(desirable)
• Basic Food Hygiene qualification.
• Experience of working in the food industry or food science qualifications.
• Degree level qualifications.
• At least 6 months panel leading experience(desirable)

Benefits

MMR offers an open, diverse and non-hierarchical environment, where bespoke MMR Academy training is offered at every level. We also offer exciting secondment opportunities at our other global locations, as well as a selection of fantastic employee benefits.

MMR delivers a class leading set of marketing science tools and approaches, many of which are proprietary to MMR. We are endorsed by our global client base for our agility, technical expertise and willingness to adapt research solutions to directly focus on specific client challenges. We’ve built a reputation of providing innovative statistical analysis and techniques, coupled with optimal research design consultancy, that successfully delivers against our clients’ specific business objectives.

MMR is an Equal Opportunity employer