Sr. Director of Food S&S

As a premier global food provider, the OSI Group partners with the world’s leading food service and retail food brands to provide concept-to-table solutions that delight consumers around the globe.

Join us and discover a work experience where diverse ideas are met with enthusiasm, and where you can learn and grow to your full potential. We’re looking for individuals who thrive in an entrepreneurial environment and who enjoy working as a team to deliver unparalleled service and solutions to our customers.

This role is responsible for providing OSI manufacturing plants, internal customers and assigned customers with focused, senior technical level food safety and quality support. This position serves as a food safety and quality subject matter expert, actively participates to develop FSQA strategy and builds awareness of regulatory requirements in all products categories, and advises others involved in developing and manufacturing products.

The position develops and delivers food safety plans, governance, and validation guidance.

Directs and leads the food safety science team and collaborates with other zone and global functional department heads, to set food safety priorities. Effectively collaborates with product development and process teams throughout product lifecycle. Develops and maintains relationships with industry working groups, academic organizations, and other subject matter experts which impact the food safety science programs.

• Job manages a team, has authority to hire and performance-manage the team.

• Job leads/supervises/manages 1-5 employees.

• Independently and proactively identify food safety risks to the business and define risk reduction strategies.

• Using current scientific and regulatory food safety principles to ensure emerging issues are identified, provide technical expertise and actionable advice to internal and key customers regarding food microbiology, toxicology, food safety principles and general food science.

• Proactively and independently recognize and prevent potential non-conformances or deficiencies in processing, food safety and quality systems or programs.

• Guide OSI’s implementation of best-in-class food safety policies using public health principles.

• Collaborate with zone and global colleagues to establish and proactively review food safety programs, including audits, to meet assigned customer requirements, organization standards, and government regulations.

• Define requirements for and conduct validation of processes related to lethal/kill steps including thermal, chilling, formulation, or novel technologies for products and/or processes. Assess validity of current lethality processes to ensure critical limits are consistently met. Define requirements for consistency in HACCP and food safety plan decision-making.

• Define requirements for and maintain the system of records for food safety science at the zone and plant level.

• Review application of challenge studies, shelf-life studies, and process control validation studies to ensure critical limits for critical processes are appropriate.

• Manage OSI spend on laboratory services across the North America plant network, define testing requirements, manage internal and third-party laboratories. Define methods and evaluate proficiency of laboratory work.

• Strengthen corporate FSQA linkage to facility FSQA leadership by establishing and implementing training and development in food safety risk assessment.

• Direct and evaluate gap analysis of regulatory updates, report on KPI metrics for compliance programs, access/direct the cross functional development of policies for multiple OSI programs to ensure organizational alignment.

• Play an active role in assigned trade group organizations and…