Founded in 1964, our client prides itself on being built up from the ground floor with an entrepreneurial attitude towards the growing food service industry. After gaining a strong position in their condiment lines, the company expanded to include virtually all areas of the food service industry. Today, our client employs over 500 people and has locations throughout the country. It is a privately held business that has a unique culture of customer service and entrepreneurship.
The Food Scientist is critical to the success of the company. It reports directly to the Corporate Director of Quality Assurance with dotted line responsibility to the Plant Manager. The primary mission is to create a robust system and culture throughout the operation to ensure consistent high-quality products are made and developed to ensure the safety and demands of their customers.
Position Overview
- Key responsibilities for this position include:
- Develop and implement a program to review and improve our food manufacturing processes to ensure that they have a sound micro-biology review of new and existing products to ensure they are operating in a way to produce a consistent high quality safe food products.
- Develop easy to understand and use tools for production employees to use to ensure they mitigate any risks in the process and manufacture consistently high quality.
- Works with marketing and innovation engineering to develop formulas for new products to introduce to customers.
- Personally lead with other key resources problem solving any significant food quality issues.
- Partner with plant leadership on establishing and mitigating critical control points in kitchen to minimize food safety risks.
- Responsible for maintaining recipes and SOPs for batching in Kitchen
- Identify and lead continuous improvement initiatives at the plant related to food safety and quality.
- Liaison with corporate resources on verification of new suppliers and raw materials as well as feasibility of new products under development.
- Engage and partner with external food safety resources to supplement the company’s expertise and horsepower.
- Lead efforts to consolidate like raw materials while maintain/optimize formulations
- Responsible to help review formulas and look for cost savings opportunities while maintaining safety and product performance, which could include finding substitute ingredients
- Evaluate new technologies to keep the portfolio current with emerging trends
- Key member on the NPD implementation team
Direct Reports
- None
Desired Education and Experience
- Bachelor’s degree in Food Science, micro-biology, or related field with at least five years of experience in product and/or formula development
- Good understanding of formula costs
- Technical knowledge of food quality/safety procedures and programs, regulatory requirements, microbial hazards, HACCP program development, microbiological laboratory procedures, sanitation procedures, plant operations and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP)
- Understanding of process capability and the application of process control/quality control within those processes. Six Sigma Green or Black belt certification is preferred.
- Leadership in solving complex food safety and quality issues
Personal Attributes/Skills
- Building highly effective, collaborative working relationships at all levels in the organization
- Strong ability to communicate effectively (both verbally and in writing)
- Ability to handle multiple complex tasks at one time.
- Effectively leading change in a small business environment
- Bias to action, calmly solves problems, follow-throughs, holds self & others accountable, willingness to do what it takes to get the job done
- Solid fit with our clients’ values and culture
Compensation and Location
- The position provides competitive compensation, comprehensive benefits, and if required, relocation assistance.
All Candidates must be able to work in the U.S. without sponsorship.
For additional information, please contact Liz Pereira (954) 428-3888 or at lizp@foodscience.com.