COMPANY 🌱
RYZE was founded in 2019 by Andrée Werner and Rashad Hossain, out of a parents' basement 🏠, with a mission to change daily health, starting with the morning routine: a nutrient-dense mushroom coffee ☕🍄 delivering clean energy ⚡, mental clarity 🧠, and immune support 🛡️. Built on a Direct-to-Consumer foundation with a performance marketing engine, RYZE achieved hockey-stick growth 📈 and a community of over 1 million active subscribers. 🎉
DTC remains the foundation, but RYZE has expanded into mass retail 🛒, quickly becoming the #2 item in Target's overall coffee category and is now executing a multi-channel expansion, with a cross-category launch coming in early 2027 🚀. RYZE is uniquely positioned to redefine how people think about daily wellness. ✨
We're a lean, fast-moving, mission-driven team who believe daily rituals create the foundation for living your greatest life, and we're just getting started! 🌱🔥
WHAT YOU'LL DO 🎯
We are looking for a Food Scientist with deep product formulation experience to join our Product Development team, someone who has personally developed and launched canned or liquid beverage products through a co-manufacturer to retail shelf and who understands the distinct science, validation requirements, and quality standards that commercial scale production demands. This role owns formulation for RYZE's innovation pipeline (new products and formats) and renovation pipeline (reformulating and improving what's already on shelf) across all current and future formats: RTD beverages, powdered instant, and whatever comes next. It reports directly to the Senior Director of R&D and works closely with Regulatory, Quality, Ops, and the Lab Team in Santa Ana.
Responsibilities will include:
Lead formula development across RYZE's innovation projects (new products and new formats) and renovation projects (reformulating, improving, or extending existing SKUs), from concept through co-manufacturing qualification and commercial production
Own formulation science across formats, including liquid beverage chemistry (emulsification, pH buffering, pasteurization kill steps, headspace management, ambient vs. cold chain stability) and powdered/instant formulation (solubility, moisture control, blend uniformity, shelf stability)
Lead or support the co-manufacturing qualification process for any format in play: technical evaluation, formula alignment, line troubleshooting, and QC standards
Support ingredient sourcing for RTD-specific inputs in partnership with Supply Chain
Serve as the go-to technical resource across the portfolio, flexing between formats as innovation and renovation priorities shift; this role is not siloed to a single product type
Design and implement formal ingredient validation protocols for both RTD and powdered formats, including backup supplier qualification checklists that meet retail audit standards
Partner with Quality and Sensory to build written sensory specifications for all retail-bound SKUs, creating objective pass/fail gates that can be used without your direct involvement
Support third-party lab testing programs: defining what gets tested, interpreting results, and working with Regulatory and Quality on action thresholds
Contribute to formula change review triggers, helping define when a formula adjustment requires regulatory review before it ships
Work with Regulatory to ensure active ingredient dosage levels across all formats are aligned with claim substantiation requirements before formulation work begins
Partner with Marketing and the founders during brief development to ensure ingredient levels and format decisions are commercially viable and scientifically sound
Contribute to RYZE's stage-gate process, building the technical documentation that allows projects to advance through gates with confidence
Support backup ingredient reformulation decisions with science-backed validation data, working cross-functionally with Quality and Regulatory before product ships
WHAT…