Sr. Food & Beverage Trend Researcher

About Us:  

Target is an iconic brand, a Fortune 50 company and one of America’s leading retailers.  

At Target, food is life. So, it’s the mission of our Food & Beverage organization to help our guests more easily discover the joy of food. We thrive on giving families new favorite ways to eat well and cook less, simply, and affordably. With curated in-store experiences and a streamlined assortment designed to inspire and save time, we understand the importance of food to our guests’ everyday life—from snack duty at soccer practice to important family gatherings and holidays. Join our centralized Food & Beverage team where you’ll partner with people from literally every area of the business. Here, you’ll help dream up new ways to offer our guests a reliably wonderful experience with the freshness, selection, and value they expect and deserve from Target.  

Join a dynamic team of inventive and passionate engineers, food scientists and sourcing managers in Food & Beverage Product Design & Sourcing at Target. We concept, develop, source, and deliver our owned brand foods and beverages; everything from dry goods, snacks and beverages, to candy, fresh, frozen and dairy. We research and engage with the food industry and the consumer marketplace to stay current on technical advances and get ahead of the trends. Join our dynamic and inventive team to influence the taste, quality and value that decisively positions Target above the competition.  

This team is passionate about the foods we develop to inspire and delight our Target guests. Utilize your passion for food and discovery to bring key trend insights to our product development team. Your ability to keep your finger on the pulse of all things trend & innovation and synthesize data into insights will influence our product strategy and development pipeline. Bring your design skills, curiosity, and storytelling expertise to our talented team of creative, culinary & scientific minds with visionary goals to lead the industry in best-in-class food & beverage product design and development.  

As a Food & Beverage Culinary & Trend Researcher, you will:   

• Identify and apply culinary trends and guest insights to develop and write recipes and package directions for owned brand foods and assist in curation of trends to apply to digital, marketing, and social food stories. 

• Research, write, test, and evaluate recipes, record test results, troubleshoot and re-test as necessary. 

• Partner with PD scientists and packaging creative/production team to develop optimal product package prep directions that ensure guests will have a great experience. Write package directions in Target formatting. Proof and edit directions and additional culinary content on package proofs and for digital formats. 

• Work with a variety of cross-functional roles to track multiple timetables, provide deliverables and problem-solve as necessary. 

• Research and track food & beverage seasonal & category trends. Utilize a variety of techniques to bring insights & recommendations to life to influence merchants and product development.    

• Utilize secondary research resources and insights partnerships to bring data and analytics to trend research. Integrate intuition & data from varied sources to identify key trends.  

• Conduct deep-dive trend analyses into specific food & beverage categories, providing actionable recommendations to business and development teams.    

• Keep current on newness and innovation within the food and broader retail space, tracking benchmarks & new companies, and communicating relevant information & trends to teams. Help coordinate trend immersions of local & regional markets as needed. 

• Potential to travel to key markets, trade shows and trend conferences (up to 10-20% travel)  

• Continue to advance your design, leadership, and business skills in our progressive retail business environment  

Core responsibilities of this job are described within this job description. Job duties may change at any time due to business needs.  This role requires ability to be local or willingness to relocate to MN as they work 3 days/week in office at our downtown campus.

Summary of Experience:  

• Bachelor’s degree in Design, Marketing, Business, Food Science, Culinary Science, or directly related field. 

• Experience with trend/innovation/creative/design within a food, retail, or editorial environment.  

• Skilled storyteller with demonstrated ability to influence. 

• Naturally curious with a passion for food and innovation; strong consumer orientation  

• Demonstrated ability to synthesize a wide spectrum of data into actionable insights. 

• Excellent communication and collaboration skills with internal and external partners. 

• Fluent in MS Word & excel and computer design system skills, including InDesign and /or PowerPoint. 

• Food social media savvy with experience navigating Instagram, Pinterest, Tiktok, and other food apps and bloggers.