We are looking for an experienced Head of Production to lead end-to-end manufacturing operations for an established food business in the UK. The business has an existing production facility in Southall, London, serving both the UK and European markets, with an established team and manufacturing infrastructure. The current portfolio includes confectionery and dairy products across 10+ SKUs. In parallel, the organisation is in the advanced stages of establishing a second production facility focused on snacking products. This is a leadership role with complete ownership of production, manufacturing efficiency, manpower, sourcing, supply chain coordination, quality, compliance and cost optimisation.
Key Responsibilities:
- end-to-end ownership of production and manufacturing operations at the Southall facility.
- Lead production of sweets and related confectionery/dairy products for the UK and EU markets.
- Manage and optimise the existing 50-member plant team, including workforce planning, productivity and
- Drive production planning, capacity utilisation, throughput, yield and operational efficiency.
- Establish and monitor production KPIs and use operational data and analytics to identify improvement
- Lead initiatives around cost optimisation, waste reduction, productivity improvement and manufacturing
- Oversee supply chain and sourcing activities, ensuring availability of raw materials, packaging and other production requirements.
- Work closely with procurement and suppliers to optimise sourcing costs, quality and supply continuity.
- Own quality assurance, food safety and regulatory compliance across manufacturing operations.
- Ensure adherence to relevant UK/EU food manufacturing standards, processes and compliance requirements.
- Develop and implement SOPs, production controls and continuous improvement initiatives.
- Coordinate closely with internal sales and commercial teams to align production capacity with business requirements.
- Support the ramp-up and operational readiness of the organisation's upcoming snacking-focused production facility.
- Collaborate with senior stakeholders across business development, operations, supply chain and commercial functions.
- Build a high-performance manufacturing culture focused on quality, productivity, safety and cost discipline.
Candidate Profile:
- 10+ years of experience in production/manufacturing leadership within the food industry.
- Proven experience managing large-scale manufacturing operations, ideally having overseen 15,000+ MT of production.
- Strong exposure to sweets/confectionery or dairy manufacturing is highly preferred.
- Experience managing sizeable plant teams and driving manpower productivity and operational efficiency.
- Strong understanding of supply chain, sourcing, procurement coordination and raw-material planning.
- Experience with QA, food safety, regulatory compliance and manufacturing standards.
- Strong commercial understanding with demonstrated experience in cost optimisation and reducing
- Comfortable working with production data, KPIs and operational analytics to drive decision-making.
- Experience supplying products across international markets, particularly the UK/EU, would be advantageous.
- Strong stakeholder management and leadership capabilities.
Ideal Background:
The ideal candidate would come from a confectionery, sweets, dairy, FMCG or food manufacturing background and have hands-on experience running large-scale production operations.
Experience with traditional sweets or dairy-based products would be particularly relevant, given the nature of the existing product portfolio.
What the Role Offers:
- Leadership ownership of an established UK manufacturing operation.
- Opportunity to work across UK and European markets.
- Responsibility for a sizeable existing production team and manufacturing operation.
- Opportunity to contribute to the launch and scale-up of a new snacking production facility.
- Direct exposure to senior leadership and key business stakeholders.
#J-18808-Ljbffr
