Quality & Lab Specialist

American Canyon, California, United States

About Us:
Since 1935, we've been on a mission to bring a little extra happiness to everyday life and inspire connections over food. We select the finest ingredients the world has to offer, craft premium products made with love, and never settle for shortcuts. We believe that when we share our food, we share a part of ourselves
-and that’s the only way we’ll put our name on it.

Today, our small family company has grown into a national leader in specialty olives, peppers, and sauces under the leadership of CEO Jeff Mezzetta, and our commitment to quality has never wavered. With an80-year legacy behind us and a bright future ahead, we’re seeking passionate, driven candidates to help us bring our cherished family traditions to a new generation.

The ideal candidate will have an immediate connection to our Core Ingredients:

• Crunchy Crunchy:
  We are hungry for excellence.
• Own It:
  We think and act as an owner - with appetite, initiative, and responsibility.
• Connection:
  We build authentic relationships that foster trust and open communications.
• Vibrance:
  We come to work eager and passionate about fulfilling our vision.
  
  When we share our work, we share a part of who we are.

The Quality & Lab Specialist is a hands‑on role responsible for the day‑to‑day technical integrity of the lab and supporting quality assurance activities on the plant floor. This position supports the QA Manager by conducting lab operations, State Release coordination, and instrumentation oversight, including calibration schedules, preventive maintenance, and test method review. The role applies strong technical lab expertise to resolve routine issues before they require escalation, helping ensure that company quality standards and applicable food safety regulations, including GMP, SQF, and HACCP requirements, are consistently met.

This position is intended as the future Quality & Lab Manager, with future responsibility for managing direct and/or cross‑functional resources as the role and department needs evolve.

• Conduct day‑to‑day lab operations and State Release coordination, including review of analytical test results, sample handling, lab documentation, and release decisions, resolving routine issues before they require escalation.
• Coordinate product release from State positive release, ensuring all required lab results and documentation are reviewed and verified prior to release; support the product Hold program, including tracking, dispositioning, and timely resolution of held product.
• Assess lab instrumentation performance and maintain the calibration schedule for all lab equipment, ensuring instruments are qualified, calibrated, and maintained to specification and that records are audit‑ready.
• Review test methods and lab procedures on a regular cadence for accuracy, regulatory alignment, and consistency with current GMP, SQF, and HACCP requirements; update documentation as methods or standards change.
• Support process control and thermal processing compliance for low‑acid and acidified food products, ensuring critical factors and scheduled processes are monitored and documented in line with 21 CFR 113/114 requirements.
• Assist in delivering training for lab and QA staff on test methods, instrumentation, and quality procedures, and help maintain training records to ensure staff remain current and qualified.
• Triage and route quality issues in real time.
• Consolidate shift‑level quality and lab data into a unified daily and weekly summary for the QA Manager to support KPI reporting and trend analysis, using plant systems such as Red Zone and the ERP (IFS) and AI‑based tools where useful to streamline reporting.
• Ensure consistent application of QA procedures, specifications, and…