Senior Quality Assurance Manager

Strategic Mandate & Scope

· Site quality leadership: Own the site quality and food safety agenda across all juice, dairy, sanitation and laboratory activities and serve as the principal quality advisor to site and enterprise leadership.

· Integrated systems: Build and sustain one disciplined Quality Management System while maintaining the product- and process-specific controls required for juice and dairy operations.

· Risk governance: Anticipate, assess, and communicate product, process, regulatory, supplier, and customer risks; translate findings into clear priorities and durable corrective actions.

· Organizational capability: Develop a technically strong, accountable quality and laboratory organization with clear roles, succession depth, standardized work, and effective cross-functional partnerships.

· External confidence: Represent the facility with regulators, certification bodies, customers, suppliers, and other external stakeholders with credibility and sound judgment.

Key Responsibilities

Quality & Food Safety Governance

· Lead and continuously improve the site Quality Management System and food safety programs.

· Ensure compliance with FDA, state, customer, certification, and company requirements, including preventive controls, HACCP, cGMPs, sanitation, allergens, traceability, recall readiness, and product defense. Ensure manufacturing site's Food Safety Plans / HACCP Plan are appropriate, effective, and in compliance with the FDA FSMA Preventive Controls rule

· Maintain appropriate juice- and dairy-specific process controls, records, validations, verifications, and release criteria.

· Lead regulatory, customer, certification, and internal audits; maintain audit readiness and ensure timely, sustainable closure of findings.

· Lead management review of quality performance, systemic risks, recurring deviations, and corrective-action effectiveness.

· Provide sound strategic advice to the senior leadership team to ensure that all food safety risks are well understood, and there is a clear path to address any issues or brand risks in an effective and timely manner.

· Manage key quality and food safety indicators based on process control results for the MVFF systems.

· In partnership with operation teams build action plans to drive improvement quality metrics across the dairy and juice departments.

· Provide scientific expertise and serve as a subject matter expert for programs and activities related to food safety/microbiology, regulations, and quality systems at MVFF facilities

· Ensure manufacturing site's Food Defense Plans are appropriate, effective, and in compliance with FDA FSMA Intentional Adulteration rule

Laboratory Leadership

· Oversee microbiological, chemical, physical, sensory, and environmental laboratory programs.

· Ensure scientifically sound laboratory methods, sampling, specifications, equipment controls, proficiency, data integrity, and documentation.

· Ensure timely, accurate results and escalation of out-of-specification, out-of-trend, and atypical findings.

· Optimize laboratory capability, capacity, turnaround time, and cost without compromising method integrity or compliance.

· Use laboratory and process data to identify trends, detect emerging risk, and guide preventive action.

Operational Quality & Continuous Improvement

· Partner across functions to embed quality and food safety into daily execution.

· Govern acceptance criteria for materials, processes, products, packaging, sanitation, and environmental conditions.

· Lead risk-based disposition of nonconforming materials and products, including hold, release, rework, rejection, and escalation decisions.

· Direct investigations into consumer complaints, customer concerns, process deviations, and food safety events using disciplined root cause analysis.

· Ensure corrective and preventive actions address systemic causes, include clear ownership and due dates, and are verified for effectiveness.

· Support change control, capital projects, commissioning, new product introduction, supplier qualification, and process validation from a quality and food safety perspective.

People & Culture Leadership

· Lead, coach, and develop quality and laboratory leaders and team members through clear accountabilities, technical standards, performance expectations, succession plans, and role-specific development. Build a leadership bench capable of providing resilient coverage across juice, dairy, and laboratory operations.

· Provide cross-training and development assignments that expand technical capability and ensure dependable coverage across critical quality and laboratory responsibilities.

· Promote a culture in which employees identify risk early, escalate concerns promptly, and view food safety and quality as shared operating responsibilities.

· Communicate standards and performance with clarity; influence effectively across functions and levels, including in high-pressure or ambiguous situations.

· Develop and manage the quality operating budget, staffing plan, external service needs, and capital priorities.

Qualifications

Required

· Bachelor’s degree in Food Science, Dairy Science, Microbiology, Chemistry, Biology, Engineering, or a related technical discipline.

· A minimum of 10 years of progressive quality and food safety experience in food or beverage manufacturing, including at least five years leading teams, systems, audits, investigations, laboratory activities, and product disposition decisions.

· Demonstrated command of preventive controls, HACCP principles, sanitation, environmental monitoring, allergen management, traceability, supplier quality, and audit readiness.

· Experience leading or governing a manufacturing quality laboratory and interpreting microbiological, chemical, and process data.

· Demonstrated ability to lead quality and food safety across multiple product categories, processing technologies, or operating units and to translate technical, regulatory, customer, and operational risk into clear business decisions and executive recommendations.

· Strong written, verbal, analytical, and executive communication skills.

Preferred

· Advanced degree in a relevant scientific, engineering, or business discipline.

· Direct experience in both juice and dairy manufacturing.

· PCQI and HACCP certification; SQF Practitioner or comparable GFSI scheme experience.

· Experience with aseptic, extended shelf-life, cultured, pasteurized, or other high-care beverage and dairy processes, as applicable to the site.

· Lean, Six Sigma, root cause analysis, or continuous improvement training.