Quality Manager - 12 Month FTC in Manchester

Job Purpose

Key Responsibilities Ownership

This role deals with a wide variety of tasks including, but not limited to the following:

• Quality and Food Safety: Manage quality management systems, implement improvements, and ensure compliance with food safety standards. This includes managing laboratory activities and the global testing plan.
• Legislation and Compliance: Ensure all products and processes meet global legislation, including accurate labelling and legal requirements for the different regions (ex: FEDIAF, AAFCO) for projects, supplier testing and global testing plan.
• New Product Development (NPD): Lead the technical aspects of new product development, ensuring formulations are stable, legal, and meet customer requirements, working closely with the Projects & Innovation teams.
• QMS Management: Manage existing MPM Quality Management System and make continuous improvements to the QMS and ensure adequate roll out of procedures/processes are conducted internally and externally stakeholders.
• Complaints: Oversee the management of the customer and consumer complaints process along with reporting, analysis and complaints reduction plans with each of the factories.
• Team Management: Oversee and coach a quality & compliance team, ensuring staff competence and development. Contributing to actions close outs for the engagement survey. Setting priorities accordingly for the team and managing their workload.
• Supplier and Key Stakeholder: Liaise with suppliers and key stakeholders on technical matters.
• Auditing and Certifications: Manage supplier approval, remote and physical audits, and maintain suppliers MPM QMS standards across MPM affiliate factories.
• Crisis Management: Ensure crisis management systems are in place and challenge tested such as recalls/withdrawals. Where required, urgent supplier visits if a high risk issue is identified.
• Support: Support where supplier approval / onboarding challenges occur. Support the ongoing work by MPM as a B Corp accredited company, personally or using the team members. Works collaboratively on VACCP risk assessments (internal and external) & horizon scanning for raw materials and food safety.
• Cross-functional support: Support other departments, such as innovation, projects, supply chain, customer services, operations, sales and key stakeholders across the global business with technical input. Develop relationships with useful third‑party organisations such as Trading Standards, consultants, third‑party test facilities, industry bodies, etc. & stay ahead of the industry standards.
• Be a collaborative member of the MPM Regulatory Team: Provide key feedback and support on reviewing and interpreting regulatory requirements.
• Deputy to the Head of Technical: When away on work trips, holidays, off sick, etc. Different areas will be mutually agreed to cover off in a deputy capacity as part of the team’s development and ability to work agile as a team when other team members are off from work.
• Provide: Key reports, KPIs and analytics for the business from the technical team. Provide the Head of Technical with any critical escalations that may need alignment, adjustment of overall resource or additional cost sign-off.
• Any other duties commensurate with the level of responsibility of this role.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Education: Food Science Degree – nice to have but not essential. Any training in Pet Nutrition an asset.
• Experience: 3-5 years’ experience in food or pet food manufacturing in a technical or quality leadership role. Proven experience with food safety systems and regulatory compliance. Experience in managing audits and regulatory inspections. Understanding of product development processes from within the FMCG industry.
• Technical Skills: Expertise in quality management systems and laboratory testing. Familiarity with ERP, quality management software, and reporting tools. Strong knowledge of pet nutrition, ingredient functionality, and processing technologies (wet & dry food processes) would be an asset. IT literate including use of PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Outlook.
• Soft Skills: Strong leadership and team management skills. Excellent analytical and problem‑solving abilities. Effective communication and stakeholder management. High attention to detail and decision‑making capability. Being comfortable with conflict/ability to manage conflict. Someone who is not afraid to challenge performance, timescales or be the bearer of bad news. Personal Learning – Seeks feedback and reacts / learns from experience.

Is this role for you? If this exciting opportunity sounds like a great fit for you, apply today with your CV and cover letter.