Technical Manager (Quality) in Stonehouse

The Technical Manager/Team Leader leads the efforts of the Quality Assurance Department to achieve plant, category, and enterprise goals. Duties include training and coaching partners, maintaining compliance with customers’ requirements, overseeing quality, food safety, and sanitation program design, implementation, and execution, and adhering to company and government programs, regulations, requirements, and guidelines. Additionally, this position is responsible for leading continuous improvement efforts in quality, food safety, and sanitation, always maintaining an audit ready standard, and evaluating partner performance, including partner accountability for adherence to safety, food safety, quality, and sanitation programs.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop SFI Culture - train, coach, evaluate, and reinforce continuous improvement principles with partners as well as personal, people, business, and process leadership.
• Oversees Foods Safety / Hygiene / GMP programs and ensures SFI standards are met.
• Oversee and manage all technical aspects of our dairy production process from raw materials, processing, and finished goods to our customers.
• Goals – lead and participate in team efforts to meet or exceed plant, category, and enterprise goals using continuous improvement tools, processes, and teams.
• Customer Requirements – Work with Operations, Sales, and PLS leadership in identifying, communicating, and meeting customer requirements.
• Develop processes, programs, and checks to ensure customer requirements/specifications are met.
• Governmental Regulations – Be knowledgeable of various government regulations that must be complied with, i.e., HACCP, BRC, EHS, Trading Standards, District Council, etc.
• Financial - Track and maintain control of department budgets to assure plant goals are met.
• Participate in capital project analysis, justification, and food safe implementation.
• Work with the plant and EQFS teams to make sure that Food Safety, Quality, Sanitation, and Lab programs are designed, implemented, and executed on a daily basis to meet goals and requirements.
• Together with the leadership team, ensures compliance with Food Safety and Food Quality Plans, in addition to customer requirements.
• Interprets and communicates customer requirements to plant production and/or support groups.
• Establishes and Audits PCPs, CCPs and Standard Operating Procedures to define and monitor processes, to ensure customer requirements are met.
• Reviews incidents during which the procedures are not met and determines appropriate corrective action for partners failing to follow standard procedures.
• Organization and implementation of internal and external audits (system audits), including preparation of documentation (creating and updating), training, and execution.
• Organization and implementation of Food Safety, Quality, Sanitation, and Lab training for all plant partners (as required).
• Develop, implement, and execute quality control protocols and food safety measures for the manufacturing site and third-party logistics operator.
• Collaborate with Production, Engineering and Logistics departments to optimize production processes and food safety.
• Stay updated with latest trends and advancements in food science and chilled food FMCG operations.
• Ensure all quality management systems and document control processes are up to date.
• Hygiene / Sanitation / GMP Audit.
• Monitoring and verification of site Sanitation, HACCP officer.
• Responsible for the release of finished goods and raw materials.
• Responsible for Lab Equipment and Organisation.
• Responsible for compilation, tracking, evaluation, and trending of lab analytical data.
• Support for the control of defective products.
• Complaint Management and Specification Management.
• Handle any technical issues that arise swiftly and professionally.
• Communication with Customers.

Bachelor's Degree in Food Science, Chemistry, Food Technology, Dairy Science or related field +7 years of experience in Food & Beverages Manufacturing. Leadership of small to mid-sized Quality Assurance Teams. Experience in the food industry. High quality management affinity. Ability to work in a team. Reliability. Independent, structured and solution-oriented way of working. Organizational skills. Resilience and flexibility. Excellent problem-solving and leadership skills. Strong Communication and Interpersonal Skills. Proficient in use of MS Office applications. First-hand experience with ERP systems. Availability to travel up to 10% (annual basis).

We're looking for great people who bring to life a culture of caring, partnership and customer commitment. Are you one of them? Join us.