Patrick Schafer Email & Phone Number

Greater St. Louis Area

• Responsible for product commercialization and maintenance of in-market products for the Nestle Purina Dry and Wet Product Portfolio; averaging 100+ active new development projects leading to 40+ launches annually and.
• Directed a team of cross-functional experts to establish and implement operational standards leading to 5.2% improvement in asset utilization and 8.0% reduction in quality defects delivering incremental production.
• Organized a product development team to identify and implement solutions to address 73 million lbs of material shortages impacting $787 million in sales.
• Orchestrated a product development team to define requirements, identify design solutions, and execute system qualification of three capital expansions and two new factory builds ranging from $100 million to $500+.
• Negotiated contracts and managed contractor budget, resulting in actual costs 16% below budget.
• Coached and developed leaders to build a talent pipeline that ensured business continuity through two early retirement buyout programs.

St Louis, Missouri, United States

• Responsible for innovation, renovation, in-market product maintenance, and continuous improvement across the Pro Plan, ONE, Beneful, and Alpo Brand wet product portfolios and five factories.
• Developed and launched 50+ products including a complete renovation of the ONE Dog and Cat product lines to support “natural” claims, Pro Plan Prime Plus, and ONE Cat targeted nutrition.
• Led the technical qualification of a $150 million capital expansion to ensure supply through business growth.
• Identified opportunities and completed projects leading to $2.5 million cost savings annually.

Greater St. Louis Area

• Responsible for innovation, renovation, in-market product maintenance, and continuous improvement across the Busy, Dentalife, Beggin, and Alpo Brand treat product portfolios.
• Optimized production processes to increase throughput by as much as 75%, decrease cost as much as 10%, and avoid a $29 million capital expansion.
• Formulated products to meet functional, nutritional, regulatory, safety, quality, cost, and market requirements leading to an average of 15 product launches per year.
• Delivered technical product, process, and packaging development leading to the launch of the Merrick Fresh Kisses brand, the third highest selling dental product in Pet Specialty within one year of launch.
• Collaborated internationally to commercialize the global Dentalife brand.
• Trained and developed team members as a subject matter expert on extrusion, baking, drying, cooling, coating, forming, mixing, and cutting.

Greater St. Louis Area

• Technical product development lead for ready-to-eat biscuit-style cereal and instant oatmeal products, working cross-functionally to complete projects focused on innovation, emulation, cost savings, quality.
• Developed instant oatmeal and ready-to-eat breakfast cereal from concept through commercialization.
• Conducted pilot plant and plant tests leading to the launch of new or improved products.
• Acquired knowledge of ready-to-eat cereal processes including rotary cooking, extrusion, baking, drying, sugarcoating, seasoning application, mixing, and dry blending.
• Defined specifications for finished products, ingredients, and processes.

East Lansing, MI

• Formulated prototype products for MSU Product Center clients.
• Managed consumer sensory panels utilizing various acceptance, preference and discrimination methods.
• Prepared reports detailing project objectives and progress.
• Researched client inquiries regarding ingredient functionality in given applications.

Greater Grand Rapids, Michigan Area

• Evaluated potential Meijer Brand products analyzing organoleptic properties, product specifications, functionality, nutrition, ingredients and shelf life.
• Prepared product evaluation reports summarizing the analysis of proposed items.
• Administered consumer sensory evaluations.
• Completed statistical analysis of sensory panel data and prepared reports summarizing results.
• Conducted product investigations to address quality issues and consumer complaints.

Camden, NJ

• Developed new V8 products meeting rigorous quality and cost parameters within short time lines.
• Created bench-top prototypes for the V8, Prego, Pace and Campbell’s Chunky Soup brands leading to consumer testing.
• Involved in product development projects from the concept phase through plant scale-ups.
• Worked closely with cross-functional teams to ensure optimal project performance.
• Oversaw the start-up of a new beverage production line.

Master'S Degree, Food Science; Graduate Certificate Food Safety And Defense, 4.0

Bachelors, Food Science, 4.0

Activities and Societies: Product Development Team (1st place in the 2011 IFT Mars Product Development Competition), Dairy Evaluation.

Education record