Food Safety & Quality Shift Specialist - Northwich

No Agencies Please

The Opportunity:

Provide visible, practical quality assurance support across bread and morning goods production on the assigned shift. Verify that products, processes and records meet site procedures, product specifications, customer requirements and applicable food safety and legal controls. Identify problems early, secure affected product and escalate decisions promptly.

What you will contribute:

• Complete the shift QA schedule, prioritising live production checks, start-up, changeover, end-of-run and handover activities. Check records at the point of use and correct omissions or discrepancies promptly.
• Verify ingredients, recipes, batch identity and use-by status before use. Challenge expired, unidentified or unapproved materials and prevent their use pending documented Technical disposition. Check stock rotation, storage conditions and traceability.
• Observe bread and morning goods process controls as applicable, including ingredient weighing, mixing, dough handling, proving, baking, cooling, slicing, filling and packing. Verify product appearance, bake, dimensions, net weight and specification requirements.
• Champion Quality and Shelf life Assessments , leading taste panels with inclusion of key stakeholders and departments, reporting and trending of results, and supporting corrective actions.
• Undertake traceability exercises / mock recalls and presentation to auditors when required.
• Support in audit and management of recipe systems.
• Verify allergen segregation, ingredient identity, cleaning, line clearance and correct packaging. Escalate any potential cross-contact or undeclared allergen risk immediately; secure potentially affected material and product.
• Check packaging issue, reconciliation and return; confirm artwork and product identity against the production plan. Verify printed dates, Julian or other site codes and batch information against an approved coding schedule, including independent checks required by procedure and end-of-run verification.
• Verify metal detector checks and reject systems against site procedures. Respond to failed challenge tests, equipment faults or foreign material incidents by stopping affected operations where necessary, identifying the full affected production window and placing product on hold.
• Verify weight-control checks, tare, equipment set-up and trend response in accordance with the site weight-control system. Escalate underweight trends or non-compliant lots and ensure documented assessment before release.
• Inspect GMP, hygiene, handwashing, PPE, pest evidence, glass and brittle materials, equipment condition and building fabric, especially above exposed product. Raise defects and verify suitable protection, isolation and follow-up. Report on audit findings clear and concise.
• Conduct internal audits, challenging systems and processes, reporting clearly areas of non conformance and improvement opportunities
• Support site in VACCP and TACCP meetings and challenge tests
• Attend and represent QA in site meetings as assigned.
• Control non-conforming raw materials, packaging, work in progress and finished goods through accurate identification, segregation, hold records and traceability. Support investigations, root cause analysis, disposition and corrective action verification.
• Support detailed complaint investigations as assigned, reporting of findings and identification of possible root cause, through working alongside departments.
• Provide clear handovers covering product holds, control failures, outstanding checks, engineering work, hygiene status and unresolved actions. Work with Production, Hygiene, Engineering and Warehouse while retaining independent QA judgement.

• Place materials or product on hold and prevent release until authorised disposition is documented.
• Request an immediate line stop and escalate through the site incident procedure when a significant food safety, legality or product integrity risk exists. Do not restart or release affected product without the required authorisation.
• Record the time, product range, batch codes, evidence, decisions and responsible persons for all significant incidents.
• Completion and quality of shift verifications and handovers; timely containment and escalation; accuracy of coding, allergen and weight checks; product-hold discipline; corrective action follow-through; repeat incident and complaint trends; GMP and audit outcomes.

What you will bring:

• Essential: experience in food manufacturing QA or production quality; sound GMP and food safety knowledge; accurate record keeping; confidence to challenge unsafe practice; ability to work independently on shift and communicate clearly.
• Desirable: bakery experience; Level 2 or 3 Food Safety and HACCP training; internal auditing; BRCGS and retailer requirements; allergen, traceability, foreign body and average weight control experience.
• Excel and Word competent.
• Must have attention to detail, and accuracy of clear reporting

Working relationships

Production, Technical, Hygiene, Engineering, Warehouse, Planning and site leadership. External contact with customers, auditors or authorities only when authorised by site management.

Hours of work:
4 on & 4 off shift pattern (days & nights). 2 days 07:00 – 19:00, 2 nights 19:00 – 07:00, 4 days off.

What we can offer: Competitive Salary, Pension Scheme, 20 Days holiday, Life Cover, Cycle 2 Work Scheme, Staff Shop

While we review each application on an individual basis, due to the high number of applicants we cannot guarantee that we will be able to reply to each candidate. Therefore, if you have not been invited for interview within three weeks, please assume your application has not been successful.