Mondelēz International, makers treats including Cadbury Dairy Milk, BelVita, Maynard’s Bassetts and OREO is opening applications for four chocolate taster roles – testing products before they hit shop shelves in over 150 countries.
The successful candidates will work as part of a team of 12, tasting chocolate and chocolate spreads. The lucky few will work to improve and perfect secret new Mondelēz products from across their tasty snack portfolio.
These panellists will need to work as a team to differentiate and communicate the subtleties within flavour, texture and melt in the mouth experience across the iconic brands. Chocolate tasters will be contracted to work a maximum of 8 hours a week to avoid ‘palate fatigue’.
This role will be based in Wokingham near Reading, Berkshire UK at Mondelēz International’s Global Research Centre. As a lab-based role in food science, chocolate tasters are required to understand the complexities of the human senses and mechanics of chocolate eating.
When it is safe again to do so, tasters will return to the lab to share thoughts and collectively review products before testing in individual booths. For the time being, in compliance with COVID-19 guidelines the chocolate tasters are coming to site to collect pre-prepared laboratory samples.
“Like anyone would, I love working as a chocolate taster – there is so much more to eating chocolate than you would think. It’s hugely rewarding to play a part in a new product launch, it fills me with pride to see the final product on my local supermarket shelves” said Amanda Greenwood, chocolate panellist at the Mondelēz International Wokingham site.
“Chocolate tasters are vital to our business as their input helps us to perfect our products before they hit the shelves. In this challenging and unprecedented year, our ways of working with our chocolate tasters have become more agile. We very much hope to return to site when it is safe to do so, we all miss the office camaraderie of discussing the products together. Consumer insight and research is a fascinating field, I can’t wait to see who joins us next to help us to perfect the nation’s favourite treats,” said Afsha Chugtai, senior group leader, consumer science, RDQ Mondelēz International.
