Food Safety & Quality Director, Food And Beverage

This key Food Safety and Quality Director role will lead Food Safety and quality across 2 large clusters of Ready to Eat Food and Beverage sites.  Build capability and teamwork with customer focus, continue to advance Food Safety and sanitation systems, and drive excellence in quality, achieving results aligned with Integrated Operations and business needs.

• Oversee, guide, and verify deployment of Kerry Food Safety and sanitation standards across sites in alignment with GFSI and FDA. Review and consult on HACCP and Food Safety Plans, and the preventive controls that support them to ensure effective Food Safety controls.  Verify hygienic zoning and guide improvements in sanitation program and transitions as appropriate.
• Review and ensure robust sanitation and environmental programs are in place to prevent microbial risk to product.
• Review analytical and sensory programs, providing guidance to enhance and reduce variation, to meet customer expectations consistently.  Engage team in the commercialization process to verify end to end Food Safety and process capability for quality parameters.
• Ensure that effective preventive plans are developed to eliminate deviations and complaints through analysis, proactive identification of risk, culture building and verification
• Conduct and review internal audits and closure of corrective actions, verifying readiness for external audits and compliance to regulatory requirements and Kerry standards. 
• Coach, onboard, develop the Food Safety and Quality Managers at each site to build capability and ensure successful delivery of results.
• Plan and lead quality culture initiatives, driving a Safety First, Quality Always, Right the First Time, continuous improvement culture in partnership with operations leadership. 
• Understand and apply PCQI, SQF, SPC, HACCP, GMP and food/beverage technology knowledge to identify opportunities and guide improvement plans.  
• Demonstrated capability to develop top to top rapport with strategic customers and internal stakeholders, as well as building Quality to Quality relationships with customers.

This role requires frequent travel to sites to develop team, provide technical expertise in Food Safety & Quality, and to verify and enhance programs and performance.  Role will be based in Beloit, Wisconsin, but consideration may be given to other geographic locations in the Midwest (near a major airport) with significant (50%) travel to sites required.

• Bachelor of Science degree from an accredited institution in a science or engineering discipline, with significant experience in Food Safety.
• 12+ years' experience in Food Safety and quality at a director level position with multi-site responsibility preferred.
• Knowledge/experience in RTE food, with a preference given to those with experience in similar technologies, including spray dry, dairy, dry blend, seasonings, aseptic, liquid blending and filling.
• Excellent communications skills, internally and externally, building effective relationships and influencing others.
• Experience auditing and being audited.
• Competent in root cause analysis, corrective action, verification and validation. Understanding of good laboratory procedures.
• Knowledgeable in Food Safety, HACCP, GMP's, Prerequisite Programs, sanitation, sanitary design, and environmental monitoring programs.
• GFSI Certification - SQF, BRC or FS22000.  PCQI Trained.
• Statistical Process Control and FMEA experience.
• Better Process Control School, Low Acid Canned Food & aseptic experience preferred.