Director of Food Safety

Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following. Owns corporate food safety programs and ensures consistent implementation, verification, and continuous improvement across all company facilities. Establishes standards, tools, training, and performance expectations to assure food safety, regulatory compliance, and product quality. Other duties may be assigned.

• Provides corporate governance and technical leadership for all food safety intervention systems; verifies effectiveness, drives validation/verification plans, and leads continuous improvement across sites.
• Leads HACCP system design, implementation, verification, and reassessment activities across facilities; ensures programs are aligned with regulatory and customer requirements and maintained current.
• Establishes company-wide SSOP/sanitation program standards (including ATP/environmental monitoring where applicable), trending, corrective action expectations, and verification routines.
• Leads multi-site GFSI, regulatory and customer audit readiness; coordinates audits, standardizes evidence packages, and ensures timely corrective and preventive action closure.
• Serves as a corporate technical liaison for USDA-FSIS (and FDA as applicable), including support for NRs, regulatory correspondence, and resolution of findings across facilities.
• Develops and deploys enterprise food safety training (HACCP, GMP, sanitation, allergen management, food defense, etc.); ensures training effectiveness and compliance across sites.
• Will be the leads recall/withdrawal coordinator/director.
• Provides food safety leadership for new product introductions and process changes across sites, including risk assessments, validation plans, and start-up verification.
• Partners with Supply Chain and QA to ensure supplier documentation and approval/verification programs support food safety requirements (specifications, allergen statements, nutritional information, ingredient formulations, COAs). Oversee Tracegains supplier approval module.
• Defines and monitors food safety KPIs and leading indicators; prepares enterprise reporting, trends, and action plans for leadership review.
• Conducts or leads internal audits and cross-site assessments; identifies systemic gaps and drives standard work and corrective actions to prevent recurrence.
• Supports site teams during deviations, investigations, and pre-op/sanitation issues; verifies root cause analysis and corrective action effectiveness.
• Oversees food safety regulatory and customer requirements related to export programs and Country of Origin Labeling (COOL), as applicable; ensures site execution and documentation support.
• Conducts shelf-life studies and customer-required validations;
• Provides governance for sanitation chemical program requirements (approved suppliers, inventory/usage controls, and SDS access) in partnership with Sanitation and site teams.
• Maintains corporate standards for raw material receiving and inspection program requirements and works with sites to ensure consistent execution against specifications.
• Other duties assigned as needed.

Education and/or Experience

• A minimum of a B.S degree in Animal Science, Meat Science or related field is preferred.
• A minimum of five years general FSQA experience in meat processing preferred.
• A minimum of three years FSQA Management experience is required.
• Understanding of the USDA-FSIS and FDA regulations, label requirements, GMPs (Good Manufacturing - Practices) and good QA practices, processes, and requirements

- Travel expectation: up to 30%.

• Experience in sanitation procedures and sanitation chemicals preferred but not required.

Certificates, Licenses, Registrations

- HACCP Certified

• PCQI Certified
• Food Safety and Handling certifications