Food Safety Manager in London

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

Company overview: Food Lab creates customisable white label liquids for brands, based on the latest market trends. Our products vary from ice pops to salsa to matcha syrups. We have recently opened new factories in the US and the UK, and we are looking for someone to lead on the food safety at our latest factory in Vauxhall. This will be the founding food safety role within a new factory team, and presents a unique opportunity to take full ownership of food safety and create our processes from scratch within a fast-growing start-up environment.

Reporting To: Director of Operations

Role Overview: As Technical & Food Safety Manager, 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.

Key Responsibilities:

• Develop, implement and maintain the food safety management system (FSMS) for our syrup business, aligned with relevant standards (e.g., BRCGS, FSSC 22000, HACCP).
• Lead hazard analysis, risk assessments and mitigation plans specific to syrup manufacture (e.g., microbiological, chemical, allergen, physical hazards).
• 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 (e.g., flavour syrups, dairy‑free syrups) 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. Develop corrective/preventive actions (CAPA).
• Analyse quality/food safety performance metrics (non‑conformances, customer complaints, returns) and drive continuous improvement initiatives.
• Provide technical support to production and operations (e.g., root‑cause investigations, change‑control management, deviation handling).
• Maintain and update technical documentation: HACCP plans, allergen registers, process flow diagrams, sanitation schedules, specification sheets, certificates of analysis (CoAs).
• 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 (e.g., syrups stability, clean label, allergens), and advise senior leadership accordingly.

Skills & Experience:

• 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 (experience with syrups, beverages, liquid ingredients or formulations is strongly preferred).
• Proven hands‑on experience with implementing and managing FSMS (HACCP, BRCGS, FSSC 22000 or similar).
• Strong understanding of UK/EU food safety regulation, labelling, allergen control, shelf‑life & stability testing.
• Experience conducting internal and external audits, managing customer technical requests and supplier audits.
• Demonstrated ability to manage stability/shelf‑life programmes and formulation/process trials from NPD all the way through to retail.
• Excellent problem‑solving skills, root‑cause analysis and technical investigation experience.
• Strong interpersonal skills; 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 — ability to anticipate issues and act to mitigate risk.

Desirable:

• Certification in food safety lead auditor or equivalent.
• Experience working with liquid/flowing products, pumpable syrups, concentrates or beverages.
• Experience with shelf‑stable liquid products (e.g., concentrates, flavour syrups) and knowledge of microbiological stability in low‑pH or sugar / high‑sugar systems.
• Knowledge of clean‑label, allergen‑free, or sugar‑reduced product trends.
• Familiarity with UK retail/foodservice customer technical requirements (spec sheets, audits, site visits).
• Lean manufacturing/continuous improvement experience (Six Sigma, Kaizen or similar).
• Technical innovation experience — supporting new product launches, process optimisation and scale‑up (which is relevant since you plan to scale syrup production).

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):

• Audit performance: number of non‑conformances, time to close corrective actions.
• Number of customer technical complaints or returns and trend improvement.
• Number of supplier non‑conformances and on‑time corrective actions.
• Shelf‑life/stability results meeting target for new products.
• Training completion rates for production/QA food safety/hygiene training.
• Time from deviation detection to root‑cause resolution and CAPA implementation.
• Regulatory/label compliance incidents.
• Successful launch of new products/process scale‑up without significant quality or safety issues.

Personal Attributes:

• Proactive and self‑motivated — able to drive systems, processes and improvements independently.
• Strong communicator — able to simplify technical matters for various stakeholders.
• Analytical thinker with a strong data‑driven mindset.
• Collaborative — able to work across functions while maintaining technical rigour.
• Detail‑oriented while also able to see the bigger picture and support business growth.
• Flexible/adaptable — comfortable in a growing, dynamic business environment (e.g., you scaling from pilot to full production line).
• Integrity and commitment to food safety excellence and compliance culture.

Terms:

• Employment type: Full‑time, permanent.
• Travel: Occasional visits to suppliers, customers, relevant conferences or audit sites.
• Salary: £50,000 - £65,000 depending on experience.
• Generous employee share and options scheme.
• Start date: ASAP.