How can a food technologist move up the career ladder to be in research & development?

To improve the food technologist  should be scientific background  and certified. Courses from An accredited organisation  after that should be follow latest issued  from munispality  for other side he can applied the science in the work correctly 

R&D is quite a interesting job and requires a person with solid scientific educational background. Make your hobby to study Food related books and recent research papers. Precisely study analytical techniques and perform them repeatedly under very expert supervision. Workout to study the effects of individual ingredients and their synergistic effects in food processing in a scientic manner and then manupulating these results and calculating using any good statsitical package software.

Be confident and it will be a great advantage if you work with other expert, for experience and things will get pretty straight.

Wish you Best of luck