Food Health & Safety Manager (Contract) in London

Location: London Bridge, London, United Kingdom with occasional travel to the USA

Reporting To: Director of Operations

As Technical & Food Safety lead, you will own and drive all aspects of product quality, food safety, technical compliance and continuous improvement for our beverage production business. You will ensure that our processes, products and facilities meet the highest standards of regulatory compliance, customer requirements and internal best-practice. You will work cross-functionally across production, R&D, purchasing, supply chain, and regulatory affairs to ensure safe, consistent, high-quality syrup manufacture and distribution.

• Develop, implement and maintain the food safety management system (FSMS) for our syrup business, aligned with relevant standards (e.g., Lead hazard analysis, risk assessments and mitigation plans specific to syrup manufacture).
• Ensure compliance with UK, EU and USA food safety legislation, labelling, allergen control, nutritional declaration, etc.
• Work with R&D/Production to ensure new syrup products and formulations meet safety, stability, shelf life and pumpability requirements.
• Manage shelf-life studies, stability testing, process validations, and technical trials.
• Support facility qualification/validation: CIP (clean-in-place), sanitation regimes, hygiene monitoring, environmental controls, equipment maintenance.
• Oversee supplier approval, audits, specification management and traceability for raw materials, ingredients, additives, packaging.
• Perform internal audits and manage external audits/inspections by certification bodies and customers.
• Analyse quality/food safety performance metrics and drive continuous improvement initiatives.
• Provide technical support to production and operations.
• Provide training to production, QA/technical staff on food safety, hygiene, GMP and technical matters.
• Work with regulatory/label-compliance teams to review and approve labels, marketing claims, nutritional data and packaging materials.
• Act as point of contact for customers’ technical/food safety queries and manage customer audits when required.
• Keep abreast of industry trends, regulatory changes, emerging risks.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree (or higher) in Food Science, Food Technology, Microbiology or a related discipline.
• Minimum three years’ experience in technical/food safety roles within the food & beverage sector.
• Strong understanding of UK/EU food safety regulation, labelling, allergen control, shelf-life & stability testing.
• Excellent problem-solving skills, root-cause analysis and technical investigation experience.
• Ability to lead cross-functional teams, train staff, influence senior leadership and communicate technical content clearly.
• Good project management skills — ability to manage multiple concurrent initiatives.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office (especially Excel, data-analysis) and quality management software.
• Experience working in a manufacturing environment (preferably UK-based) with good knowledge of GMP, hygiene, sanitation, CIP, etc.
• Strong organisation, attention to detail and proactiveness.
• Certification in food safety lead auditor or equivalent.
• Experience working with liquid/flowing products, pumpable syrups, concentrates or beverages.
• Lean manufacturing/continuous improvement experience (Six Sigma, Kaizen or similar).
• Technical innovation experience — supporting new product launches, process optimisation and scale-up.

We are committed to diversity and inclusivity.