Job Purpose
- Serves as the company's internal "consumer and trend radar," ensuring the brand remains relevant, differentiated, and ahead of competitors by translating consumer behaviors, local market opportunities, and global food trends into actionable business insights. This position is expected to constantly provide the RnD team with helpful insights related to the food market to support the innovation process.
- Delivers data-driven insights to evaluate product health, cost structures, and competitive opportunities.
Key Responsibilities
1. Food Trend Intelligence & Competitive Radar
Market Monitoring:
- Continuously monitoring consumer trends including Gen Z dining behaviors, family dining occasions, convenience, premiumization, value perception, and health & wellness.
- Tracking emerging food & beverage trends such as viral food concepts, trending ingredients, international cuisine movements, and social-media-driven items.
Competitor Tracking:
- Monitoring major competitor movements, product launches, pricing shift, and promotional mechanics across QSRs, pizza chains, cafes, and bakery brands (e.g., Pizza Hut (our brand), Domino's, The Pizza Company, Popeyes, KFC, McDonald's, Starbucks, Highlands, Katinat, and local artisan spots).
- Conducting regular store audits and market sweeps to dissect competitor menu architectures, price point adjustments, and portion/build modifications.
Reporting & Deliverables:
Generating Monthly Trend Digests, Quarterly Trend Reports, and Annual Pizza & Food Trend Outlook.
2. Field Exploration & Food Safari Program Execution
Safari Operations:
- Planning and leading 4 field-based quarterly "Food Safaris" to explore emerging culinary concepts across:
- Cafes & Beverage Chains: Starbucks, Highlands, Katinat, Phuc Long, etc.
- Bakery & Dessert Concepts: Paris Baguette, Tous Les Jours, local artisan bakeries.
- Restaurants & QSRs: Korean, Japanese, and trendy casual dining concepts.
- Street Food Hotspots: Ho Thi Ky, Nguyen Thuong Hien, Ben Thanh area, and emerging food districts.
- Synthesizing field observation data into structured Trend Observation Reports and building an ongoing Innovation Opportunity Pipeline for the R&D team
3. Consumer Insights & Feedback Mining
Customer Immersion:
- Conducting in-store observations, customer interviews, family dining studies, and young consumer behavior studies where relevant to identify why customers choose or switch brands.
Data Mining & Unstructured Analytics:
- Mining and analyzing customer feedback data annually across customer surveys, delivery platforms, and Google Reviews to identify unmet customer needs and menu gaps in terms of products.
Insight-to-Action:
- Turning customer sentiment and review data into strategic recommendation projects for core menu updates or LTOs (Limited Time Offers)
4. Product Performance, Cost Analysis & Margin Optimization
Menu Health & POS Analytics:
- Extracting data to perform regular product performance analyses across menu categories, tracking margin, profit contribution, etc. of the current permanent menu and following new product launches.
Cost of Sales (COS) & Margin Optimization:
- Performing product COS analysis to monitor price trends in key raw ingredients and simulate how raw material cost swings impact menu margins.
- Identifying saving or optimization opportunities through yield optimization analysis, alternative ingredient sourcing, and portion control evaluations.
Post-Launch Impact Tracking:
- Tracking post-launch sales data, financial ROI, and relevant insights for newly launched menu items
5. AI-Powered Consumer Analytics & Tool Management
Digital Analytics:
- Utilizing digital tools (e.g., Microsoft Copilot, Google Trends, social listening tools, and food trend databases) to capture real-time consumer sentiment and ingredient popularity.
Dashboard Maintenance:
- Building and maintaining a centralized Trend Database, Consumer Sentiment Dashboard, Emerging Ingredient Tracker, and Competitor Launch Tracker where relevant.
6. Menu Innovation Support & Cross-Functional Collaboration
Pipeline & Workshop Facilitation:
- Organizing Quarterly Innovation Workshops and creating Innovation Opportunity Maps to present quarterly findings and help generate new concepts for the product team.
Innovation Support:
- Supporting the Assistant R&D Manager and Innovation Chef with ad-hoc analytical, forecasting, concept screening, innovation projects, and administrative support.
7. Other tasks assigned on project-based
Key Requirements
Education / Training
- Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Food Science, Consumer Insights, Marketing, Tourism and Hospitality, or a related field
Experience
- 2+ years in research, data analytics, FMCG innovation, or consumer insights within F&B, QSR, restaurant chains, or retail sectors.
Knowledge / Skills / Attributes
- Analytical mindset and data interpretation
- Written and visual presentation skills
- Consumer empathy and observational research skills
- Group facilitation and workshop leading
- Strategic thinking and pattern recognition
- Curiosity, self-motivation, and initiative
Strongly preferred
- High passion for food trends, culinary exploration, and understanding consumer-dining behaviors.
- Proficiency in MS Excel, BI reporting tools (Power BI), and presentation tools (MS PowerPoint).
- Hands-on experience working with data sets, customer review mining and sales mix metrics.
- Strong analytical mindset with the ability to turn complex quantitative and qualitative data into clear, strategic business summaries.
