QA Technologist in Northfleet

As a QA Technologist you will be responsible for ensuring that all product and processes comply with food safety, legality, authenticity and quality requirements throughout all stages of the production process based on a weekly rota on areas/responsibilities.

Main Duties

• Monitoring and upholding of all food safety and legal requirements.
• Understanding of company policies and procedures to enable checking and improving compliance within production.
• Assessing quality of fruit throughout the production process to ensure compliance to internal and customer specifications.
• Verifying Critical Control Points (CCPs) to ensure critical limits are being met.
• Reporting any failures to the QA Supervisor and support in corrective action implementation.
• Creating new programmes in the metal detectors and checkweighers and troubleshooting issues during production.
• Daily checks of factory processes and procedures to ensure compliance and good manufacturing practices are adhered to.
• Identifying and reporting any quality, food safety or compliance concerns to QA Supervisors and Customer Technical Team as appropriate to enable quick rectification.
• Thoroughly conducting practical internal audits including CCP, GMP, Fabrication, Glass and Hard Plastic etc. paperwork to facilitate traceability requests.
• Collecting and registering product samples for microbiological testing.
• Following the sampling plan to correctly take and accurately register swabs, air plates and water samples.
• Completing and supporting Print Room operations as required based on the rota.
• Conducting daily Taste Panels as required (start of life and end of life).
• Convey accurate and insightful reporting of taste panel results, ensuring details are provided of any positive or negative aspects from the panel and actions taken to rectify issues.
• Coordinate any immediate corrective actions from product that fails to meet quality parameters and provide details of this to key stakeholders in a timely manner.
• Ensure the taste panel room is maintained in a clean and hygienic manner including worktops and fridges.
• Print and manage copies of Customer Quality Standards, ensuring the correct versions are available as references.
• Assessing quality of finished product in Assembly and Collation to ensure compliance to internal and customer specifications.
• Completion of QUID spot checks on the line.
• Completion of tray compliance audits in Collation to assess quality and adherence to specifications.
• Communication to QA and Production teams on findings to enable swift rectification of quality issues.
• Assessing quality of fruit throughout the production process (raw material through to finished product) to ensure compliance to internal and customer specifications.
• Assessment includes, but is not limited to; count of defects, quality attribute assessment (appearance, taste and texture), against the customer specification.
• Carrying out a Quality Control circuit in both the low risk and high care areas as appropriate, focusing on preparation and assembly areas.
• Monitor and record finished product weights checks for all products alongside QUID checks for components.
• Recording of quality details, as required, including taking pictures or counting of defects.
• Understanding of Customer standards and requirements to ensure follow-through and adherence to specification.
• To address any non-conforming products and activities quickly, ensuring that both the PrepWorld brand and customer brands are protected.
• Coach Production Operatives on the correct handling of raw materials and understanding of defects.
• Completion of the on hold and non-conformance procedures as appropriate, alongside the shift report and any other logs that may be implemented.
• Operating in a tidy, organised, and efficient manner to complete all QA operations and maintain order within the Print Room and QA Lab (Taste Panel room).
• Acting proactively to identify areas for improvement.
• Acting with the customer in mind.
• Support for the wider Technical Team as required.

Key Accountabilities

• Identifying areas of non-compliance and reporting correctly to enable corrective actions and route cause analysis.
• Assessing fruit quality throughout the factory process to uphold internal and customer standards.
• Following the sampling plan to ensure all samples are taken and registered correctly.
• Monitoring food safety compliance and reporting of any issues.
• Completing paperwork to a high level of accuracy.

Qualifications

• GCSE English A-C (or equivalent)
• GCSE Maths A-C (or equivalent)

Specific Knowledge & Experience

• (Preferable) experience in the food industry
• (Preferable) experience with Print Room operations and printing/ editing software

Specific Skills

• Self-organised approach and the ability to plan a workload
• Good work ethic
• Flexible and ability to adapt ways of working to support team requirements.
• Previous experience in QA/ QC in the food environment (especially short life, chilled, high care, prepared fruit)
• Sensory training beneficial
• Ability to use a range of terms to describe fruit quality and defects.
• Good time management
• Good standard of spoken and written English
• IT literate, the role involves a lot of computer work, so proficiency in IT system is essential.
• Excellent attention to detail

Shift Pattern

Sunday to Wednesday

Salary

L1: £13.06 - £13.44 per hour
L3: £13.80 per hour (Rate dependent on experience)