Safety, Quality and Compliance Director in Chichester

Up to £150,000 + Profit Share Scheme + car allowance + relocation support and wider benefits.

Set the technical vision and build the function that can scale with ambitious growth. You’ve led technical teams across complex food manufacturing environments. You know how hard it can be to create consistency across multiple sites, each with its own people, pressures, pace and ways of working. But now you’re ready for the opportunity to take that to the next level. This is that opportunity.

We are working with a large, multi-site food manufacturing business, who are a major player in their sector in the search for a Safety, Quality and Compliance Director. This is a brand-new Director seat created around a genuine growth story, not a steady-state compliance brief. The business has a clear plan delivering significant growth over the next 5 years, giving you the opportunity to build a Safety, Quality and Compliance function that can support an even larger operation.

This is not a senior technical role that sits slightly to the side of the business. It reports directly to the COO and gives the autonomy to shape the structure, systems and standards across food safety, quality, compliance, health & safety and environmental governance. Unlike other Technical Director roles where you are inheriting a structure and keeping it moving, this one is different. It’s an opportunity that will see you building a system that works across multiple sites, supports growth, gives customers confidence and keeps the business in control when you’re not in the room.

One of the biggest areas you’ll influence is quality consistency. The business knows it needs to move this forward, particularly with major retail customers and this role gives you the opportunity to lead that turnaround. Not by simply holding the standards, but by building the culture, accountability and ways of working that make quality part of how the sites operate every day.

This isn’t a role about doing the day-to-day customer engagement or owning every detail. This role will see you as the driver of the system. Influencing teams, holding people accountable and being the torch guiding the business to its ongoing success.

The Business: They are a sizeable, fast-growing food manufacturing business supplying major UK retailers and some of the biggest names in foodservice, giving the role a customer base and level of complexity that will carry real weight on your CV. Across four high-throughput sites in West Sussex, they produce chilled, short shelf-life products in a fast-paced environment where quality, consistency and service really matter. The business is already operating at significant scale, with around 1,200 people across the group and further growth planned. This next phase is where you come in, focusing around building for what comes next.

What you’ll need: You’ll need to have operated at a senior level within food manufacturing, with food safety sitting at the heart of your experience. This could be as a Technical Director, Group Head of Technical or similar senior leadership role where you have owned the systems, standards and governance across a complex operation. You’ll bring deep technical credibility across HACCP, BRCGS, food law, allergens, microbiology, food fraud and retailer standards, alongside the leadership presence to operate with senior customers, regulators, certification bodies, the board and factory teams.

Just as importantly, you’ll know how to lead through others, setting direction, creating accountability and building a system that works without everything needing to run through you. This will suit someone who thinks in systems rather than tasks. You’ll need to be comfortable creating consistency across multiple sites, challenging senior stakeholders where needed, and building capability across the function.

What Next? I know you’re more than your CV and you may not have one up to date. No worries. Just send what you have now, and we’ll take it from there. Let’s first have an informal chat. Email Jared at jared@corvinfox.co.uk to line up a confidential conversation.