Intern

About the Role

Hilmar Cheese Company offers a 10-week paid, skill-enriching, innovation-generating summer internship. Interns are expected to innovate, collaborate, and deliver, bringing fresh ideas and owning exciting projects. This role is located at our Hilmar, CA site.

Key Responsibilities

• Participate in team projects that contribute to the improvement of the company’s commercial processes and product quality.
• Understand the science behind cheese making and explore new technology options.
• Investigate the microbiology of cheese making at the cell and molecular level.
• Develop analytical methods to evaluate dairy ingredient quality and functionality.
• Characterize/evaluate a current commercial process or new processes the R&D group is developing.
• Assist in the set-up of laboratory or production experiments.
• Scale-up and production of products for use as sales prototypes.
• Investigate alternative ingredients with whey protein substitution.
• Characterize new ingredients (Functionality testing).

Requirements & Tech Stack

• Basic knowledge of MS Office products: Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, Excel.
• Strong applied technical skills and analytical problem-solving skills.
• Good oral and written communication skills.
• Reliable transportation to and from work.

Qualifications

• Completion of Sophomore year at a university.
• Working towards a degree in Food Science, Chemical Engineering, Microbiology, Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, or a related field.

Physical Demands & Work Environment

• Standing, walking, use hands to finger, handle or feel and reach with hands and arms, climb or balance, stoop, kneel, crouch or crawl and talk or hear.
• Stand and walk almost the entire workday.
• Physically capable of working in any of the job tasks within their respective area.
• Required to work at heights and in fairly small areas.
• Pushing, pulling, reaching, bending, stooping, squatting, kneeling, handling and grasping, twisting/turning, repetitive bending.
• Frequent exposure to dust, fumes, smoke, gases, or other irritating substances.
• Exposure to solvents or chemicals.
• Exposure to slippery walking surfaces (water).
• Exposure to marked changes in temperature and humidity depending on time of year.
• Working surface is primarily concrete. Rubber mats are provided where standing is required.