VP of Food Safety - Irvington, United States - BrightFarms Inc

Description

Job Description

BrightFarms - The Pinnacle of Sustainable Indoor Farming

As industry leaders in sustainable indoor farming, BrightFarms is currently in the midst of an exciting expansion and national scaling. We are launching several new, climate-controlled greenhouse farms across IL, GA, TX, and the Northeast. Together with our current farms in NH, PA, VA, NC, OH, IL, this expansion will pave the way for a projected 10X revenue growth within the next 5 years, reinforcing our dominant presence in the controlled environment agriculture (CEA) sector.

BrightFarms - The Place to Grow

At BrightFarms, we're on a mission to revolutionize the way leafy greens are grown. But we don't just want to grow great tasting greens, we want them to do good as well: for the planet, for the health of people, and for the well-being of our employees. Our passion for building the next generation of farming fuels our passion for nurturing our people. We give BrightFarmers the tools, training, support, and opportunities they need to do better for themselves and the world every day. Because when you do good for your people, they do good for the world.

The Opportunity

We are looking for a seasoned leader to enhance and expand our Food Safety and Quality efforts, with a particular focus on expanding our industry-leading culture and systems. This position is a highly visible, leadership role and critical as we scale the Company nationally over the next 5 years.

Responsibilities

The Vice President of Food Safety and Quality helps guide the enterprise through the scaling of two major functional areas: food safety (operations, regulatory affairs, industrial hygiene) and quality (quality assurance operations, quality assurance measuring [including without limit internal auditing], reporting). The VP focuses on understanding and applying existing, new and emerging technologies and practices to transform and scale our operations. The VP's focus is to help the organization plan, design, innovate, orchestrate, facilitate, navigate, operationalize and evolve food safety and quality programs.

Specific food safety responsibilities:

• Effectively represent, advocate, and/or build collaborations with government agencies, industry groups, non-profits, and academia.
• Ensure constant 100% compliance with all state and federal regulations regarding food safety and quality, staying current on all changes to regulation that affect our processes and implementing the required process changes to remain compliant.
• Ensure training and documentation for all food safety and quality programs is developed, deployed, standardized, as applicable, and assessed across all sites by the appropriate FSQA practitioner.
• Design, create and update all internal control documents and lead team to ensure they are completed accurately and consistently. Partner with technology teams to deploy automated systems, sensors, and analytics to ensure that BrightFarms food safety and quality programs are effectively executed across all sites
• Ensure FSQA and Ops are prepared for all quality and food safety audits. Ultimately accountable for managing and the team that is responsible for internal and external audit preparation (scheduling and coordination with auditing bodies, managing mock audits, self-auditing documentation, creating and managing punch lists for maintenance and operational improvements, training teammate culture and practice), to audit (managing the auditor at all times and their process of gathering necessary materials), to corrective action and response (identifying appropriate corrective actions, managing implementation with maintenance and operations, and documenting and reporting corrective actions in a timely fashion). Ensure certifications are maintained consistently and third-party suppliers maintain all audits and certifications we require of them as well;
• Own the company's environmental monitoring and product test, hold and release program, as the authority on interpreting microbiological and allergen testing results, gatekeeping product release, and implementing any corrective actions to address any flaws suggested by test results.
• Act as the leader in any food safety incident, including but not limited to suspected contamination, food borne illness, product adulteration, or recall of any kind; maintain control over and documentation of all affected product until a final determination is made and it is used or properly disposed of, and liaison with applicable regulatory agencies/public health authorities, as appropriate.

Specific quality responsibilities (not comprehensive):

• Ensure customer expectations are maintained and communicated in clear spec sheets and any other QA-related documentation requested by the customer; respond to all customer complaints and manage and communicate corrective actions for any non-compliant products; study trends in customer satisfaction and use the data to inform a process of continuous improvement or to mitigate potential issue
• Collaborate with team members conducting R&D or preparing to launch new products, helping navigate safety, quality, or regulatory obstacles, developing and testing processes and materials, allergen declarations and nutrition panels, and onboarding new products and new suppliers that meet our standard.
• Manage our supplier approval process and work with our suppliers and co-packers to ensure that they consistently meet our food safety and quality standards and provide all appropriate documentation; work with smaller suppliers to teach and bring them to our standard.

Qualifications

• Master's Degree required, PhD preferred in chemistry, biology, microbiology, food science, or a related field
• 10+ years QA and food safety work experience, some at a senior level. Experience with produce safety is a must.
• Strong leadership, influencing, and teamwork skills, and ability to clearly communicate FSQA standards and action items to a diverse team and drive results through direct and indirect team members.
• Proficiency in understanding complex food safety regulatory and scientific publications, and ability to translate such technical content to help the team understand what it means for them.
• Experience planning, goal setting, driving a team toward results, and measuring achievement of continuous improvement goals.
• Ability to prioritize and conduct in-the-moment risk assessments, interpret statistical data and trends.
• Competency with recall / crisis management and performing mock recalls.
• Ability to see quality and safety within the company's strategic framework and make long-term decisions for the benefit of the Company and its stakeholders.
• Flexible travel to farms and Corporate HQ up to 30% of the time, at times with little notice, with more concentrated time at new sites as they are opening/starting up.

BrightFarms is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer - All qualified applicants/employees will receive consideration for employment without regard to that individual's age, race, color, religion or creed, national origin or ancestry, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, physical or mental disability, veteran status, genetic information, ethnicity, citizenship, or any other characteristic protected by law.