Quality Manager
- Location: Asheville, NC
- Industry: Food & Beverage Manufacturing
- Shift: Primarily 1st Shift with flexibility required for cross-shift and audit coverage.
- Pay: $120-135k
You will be the leader of the Quality Assurance (QA) and Food Safety programs at a high-volume food and beverage manufacturing facility in Asheville, NC. The ideal candidate will be an experienced and hands-on Quality Manager responsible for maintaining and advancing the plant's food safety culture, driving continuous improvement in quality metrics, and ensuring strict compliance with all regulatory and GFSI standards across complex hot fill bottling/canning lines and blending operations.
General Responsibilities of a Quality Manager
- Lead Quality Systems: Oversee, manage, and continuously improve all food safety and quality management systems, including HACCP, PCQI, Prerequisite Programs (PRPs), and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs).
- Regulatory & GFSI Compliance: Maintain and lead the site's readiness and certification under a GFSI-recognized scheme (SQF preferred). Ensure compliance with all regulations from FDA, USDA, and EPA concerning food production, labeling, and quality standards, including environmental compliance for wastewater treatment.
- Team Leadership: Manage and develop the Quality Department team, including supervisors and technicians. Monitor team productivity, provide coaching and counseling, conduct training, and enforce all quality and safety procedures.
- Process Verification: Direct the effective monitoring, verification, and validation activities for all key processes, including hot fill parameters, blending accuracy, sanitation effectiveness, thermal processing, and packaging integrity for both canning and bottling lines.
- Auditing and Continuous Improvement: Manage internal audit programs, lead third-party audits (regulatory and customer), and drive root cause analysis and corrective/preventive action (CAPA) processes to resolve non-conformances and continuously improve quality and food safety metrics.
- Supplier and Ingredient Quality: Work cross-functionally with Procurement to manage the Supplier Approval Program, including raw material specifications, co-packer requirements, and ingredient quality checks.
- Laboratory Operations: Oversee the plant laboratory, ensuring all testing for finished product, in-process materials, and environmental swabs (including water/wastewater) are conducted accurately, timely, and according to established protocols.
- Customer Satisfaction: Manage customer and consumer complaint investigations, implement effective corrective actions, and act as the primary liaison for all quality-related customer interactions.
Required Skills and Qualifications
- Education/Experience: BS degree in Food Science, Microbiology, Chemistry, or a related field is required.
- 5+ years of progressive management experience in Quality Assurance/Food Safety within the Food or Beverage Manufacturing sector.
- 2+ years of direct experience managing a department under a GFSI certification scheme (SQF, BRC, FSSC 22000) is strongly preferred.
- Technical Expertise: Deep knowledge of HACCP, PCQI requirements, GMPs, sanitation principles (CIP/COP), and quality control for high-speed production lines.
- Industry Knowledge: Proven experience with quality systems in either hot-fill, bottling, or canning operations is highly preferred.
- Regulatory Knowledge: Comprehensive understanding of FDA regulations (especially for beverages), labeling laws, and basic USDA/EPA compliance as it relates to a manufacturing facility.
- Analytical Skills: Demonstrated ability to analyze quality trends and laboratory data, troubleshoot non-conformances, and use statistical process control (SPC) to maintain product specifications.
- Software/CMMS: Proficiency with laboratory information management systems (LIMS) and Quality Management Software (QMS) for document control, auditing, and CAPA tracking.
- Leadership & Communication: Excellent time management, organizational, and leadership skills. Must have outstanding written and verbal communication skills to effectively train staff, interface with regulators, and report to the leadership team.
Commutable locations: Willow Brook, Valley Hill, Flat Rock, Dana, Balfour, Mountain Home, Fruitland, Edneyville, Mills River, Zirconia, Saluda, Tuxedo and Etowah
Relevant Job Titles: Quality Assurance Manager, Food Safety Manager, QA/QC Manager, Plant Quality Manager, Director of Quality.
Job Reference:2521
All applicants must live in the USA and be eligible to work and live in the USA. Please note, our client is unable to offer Sponsorship or Visa support for this role.
Due to the sheer volume of applications, we will only contact successful applications. Therefore, if you have not heard from us within 10 working days, please deem your application as unsuccessful.
Axion Recruitment is working as a recruitment agency in relation to this vacancy.