Food Safety and Quality Assurance Specialist - Indianapolis - Suvie

Description

Food Safety & Quality Assurance Specialist

Location: Indianapolis, IN (Onsite) Travel: Up to 10% domestic

About Suvie

Suvie is a food tech startup revolutionizing home cooking. We combine advanced kitchen appliances with premium meal kits to automate dinner for people who love great food but don't always have time to cook. With multiple appliances on the market and a growing base of loyal customers, we're scaling our meal kit operation — and we need someone to own food safety and quality from the inside out.

This is a ground-floor opportunity to build and run FSQA programs at a company where your work directly shapes what lands on customers' tables. You won't be buried in a large corporate quality department — you'll be the person responsible for making sure every kit that leaves our facility is safe, accurate, and delicious.

The Role

As our Food Safety & Quality Assurance Specialist, you'll be the primary owner of food safety, quality, and sanitation programs at our Indianapolis meal kitting facility. You'll work hands-on alongside our Operations and Culinary teams to ensure every ingredient and every kit meets regulatory requirements and our own high standards.

This is an individual contributor role with real ownership. You'll manage programs, not people — but what you manage matters enormously. You'll be the go-to expert on food safety in the building, and leadership will rely on your judgment to keep our products safe and our facility audit-ready.

What You'll Do

Food Safety & Compliance

• Own and maintain the facility's Food Safety Plan under FSMA Preventive Controls, ensuring all hazards are identified, controlled, and supported by current scientific documentation.
• Ensure compliance with FDA regulations, GFSI requirements, and applicable USDA-FSIS standards. Stay current on evolving food safety regulations and industry best practices.
• Manage the facility's HACCP/HARPC programs and serve as the site's Preventive Controls Qualified Individual (PCQI), or work toward that certification promptly after hire.
• Serve as the primary point of contact for all regulatory inspections and third-party audits.

Quality Assurance — Incoming, In-Process, and Outgoing

• Oversee incoming ingredient inspection: verify supplier specs, packaging integrity, temperature compliance, lot and date codes, and labeling accuracy for all pre-packaged sealed ingredients received at the facility.
• Monitor in-process quality during kit assembly, with particular focus on kit accuracy (right items in right boxes), packaging integrity, and proper labeling.
• Review and verify finished kit labels for regulatory compliance, including nutrition facts, ingredient declarations, allergen statements, and safe handling instructions.
• Hold authority to place product on hold and make disposition decisions when quality or safety concerns arise.

Allergen & Cold Chain Management

• Own the facility's allergen control program, including segregation protocols, labeling verification, and cross-contact prevention during kitting operations.
• Manage cold chain monitoring programs across receiving, storage, assembly, and shipping to ensure temperature integrity of frozen and refrigerated products.

Sanitation & Environmental Programs

• Monitor and audit sanitation processes and their impact on food safety and quality. Recommend process changes as needed.
• Manage the environmental monitoring program (swabbing, Listeria and pathogen testing) and coordinate third-party laboratory testing.
• Oversee pest control and foreign material control programs.

Supplier Management

• Maintain documentation of supplier food safety plans, COAs, allergen documentation, and third-party audit results.
• Conduct on-site inspections and audits of current and potential suppliers.
• Lead food safety review for new ingredient and supplier onboarding, ensuring all documentation and specs are approved before product enters the facility.

Traceability, Complaints, & Continuous Improvement

• Own the facility's traceability program, including lot tracking systems and mock traceability and recall exercises.
• Investigate and document customer complaints. Conduct root cause analysis, trend data, and manage corrective and preventive actions (CAPA).
• Compile and analyze quality performance data (complaint rates, audit findings, nonconformance trends) and deliver reports and recommendations to management.
• Participate in cross-functional new product development reviews from a food safety perspective, working closely with the Culinary team.

Training & Documentation

• Develop and maintain the site-wide FSQA training program, ensuring all staff are trained and training is documented.
• Maintain complete and accurate records for all regulatory requirements and FSQA programs.

General

• Assess food safety implications when production processes, ingredients, or equipment change (management of change).
• Follow and promote safe work practices, including proper use of protective equipment.
• Occasional weekend work is part of the role — our facility doesn't stop, and neither does food safety.
  

What We're Looking For

Experience

• 3–5 years of experience in food safety, quality assurance, or a related role in a food manufacturing, co-packing, or meal kit environment.
• Solid working knowledge of FDA regulatory requirements and FSMA Preventive Controls.
• Experience with USDA-FSIS regulated products is a plus.
• Familiarity with GFSI-benchmarked audit schemes (SQF, BRC, FSSC 22000, or similar).
• Hands-on experience with allergen management programs.
• Experience managing HACCP/HARPC plans and conducting internal audits.
• Comfortable working in a startup or small-company environment where you'll build systems, not just maintain them.

Skills & Attributes

• Detail-oriented and organized — you can manage multiple programs and priorities simultaneously without dropping balls.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills. You'll write SOPs, train production staff, present to leadership, and communicate with auditors and regulators.
• Analytical mindset — you're comfortable working with data to identify trends, support decisions, and drive improvement.
• Collaborative and low-ego. You'll work shoulder-to-shoulder with Operations and Culinary teams daily.
• Self-directed. This isn't a role where someone hands you a task list every morning. You'll need to see what needs doing and go do it.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office and Google Workspace. Experience with food safety management software or digital QMS platforms is a plus.

Education & Certifications

• Bachelor's degree required, preferably in food science, food microbiology, biology, or a related field.
• PCQI certification preferred (or willingness to obtain within 6 months of hire).
• HACCP certification preferred.
• Additional certifications in GFSI standards (SQF Practitioner, etc.) are a plus.
  

Work Environment

• This role is based onsite at our Indianapolis kitting facility. You'll split time between the production floor (frozen/refrigerated warehouse environment) and an office setting.
• Requires the ability to work in cold environments with significant movement of powered equipment and conveyors.
• Physical requirements include lifting up to 50 lbs and standing/walking on concrete for extended periods (4+ hours).
• Occasional bending, squatting, pushing, pulling, and reaching.
  

Why Suvie?

You'll have real ownership of something that matters — the safety and quality of food that goes into people's homes. At a larger company, you'd be one of many quality specialists following someone else's playbook. Here, you'll build the playbook. You'll see the direct impact of your work every day, and you'll grow your expertise fast because there's nowhere to hide and no one else to hand things off to.

We're a small, experienced team with a track record of building and scaling consumer products. If you want to do meaningful work in food safety without the bureaucracy of a large corporate environment, we'd love to hear from you.