Vice President of Quality

Job Details

• Level: Senior
• Job Location:
  
  0PZ68 TULKOFF FOOD PRODUCTS OHIO LLC - CINCINNATI , OH 45241
• Position Type:
  Full Time
• Salary Range: $ - $ Salary/year
• Job Shift: Day

Tulkoff Foods is seeking an experienced Vice President of Quality to lead the company's quality assurance, quality control, and food safety strategy across three manufacturing sites. This is a critical leadership role reporting to the Chief Operating Officer and serving as a key member of the senior leadership team. The VP of Quality will be responsible for building a unified, best-in-class quality culture and management system across all facilities, ensuring consistent product quality, regulatory compliance, and food safety performance that protects the Tulkoff brand and its customers.

This role requires a hands-on leader who can balance strategic system-building with regular presence on the plant floor, driving continuous improvement while managing a team of site-level quality professionals.

• Develop and execute an enterprise-wide quality and food safety strategy across all three manufacturing sites, ensuring alignment with corporate goals, customer expectations, and regulatory requirements.
• Serve as the senior quality leader and voice of the customer for quality matters, representing Tulkoff in customer audits, co-pack/private label quality agreements, and new product qualification.
• Standardize quality systems, policies, SOPs, and specifications across sites while allowing for site-specific operational needs.
• Build and mentor a high-performing quality organization, including site Quality Managers, QA/QC staff, and food safety/microbiology resources.

• Own the company's food safety management system, ensuring ongoing compliance with FDA, USDA (as applicable), FSMA, HACCP/HARPC, and SQF/GFSI Level 3 standards across all facilities.
• Maintain and continuously improve certifications including SQF, Kosher (OU), and any customer-specific certifications (e.g., BRC, Halal, organic, non-GMO).
• Lead recall/withdrawal readiness, mock recalls, and crisis management protocols; act as lead on any actual product hold, withdrawal, or recall event.
• Serve as primary liaison with regulatory agencies and third-party auditors.

• Provide direct oversight and functional leadership to Quality/QA teams at all three manufacturing facilities, ensuring consistent execution of quality programs, sanitation standards, and food safety protocols.
• Partner with Plant Managers and Operations leadership at each site to resolve quality issues, drive root cause/corrective action (RCCA), and reduce non-conformances, customer complaints, and holds.
• Establish and monitor site-level and company-wide quality KPIs (e.g., first-pass yield, customer complaint rates, audit scores, CAPA closure rates) and report performance to executive leadership.
• Lead site quality audits and cross-site best-practice sharing to raise the performance floor across the network.

• Manage customer quality requirements, specifications, and scorecards, particularly for co-pack, private label, and industrial ingredient customers.
• Oversee supplier quality management, including ingredient/raw material approval, supplier audits, and COA/specification management.
• Support new product development and commercialization by ensuring quality and food safety are built into product and process design from the start.

• Champion a company-wide culture of food safety and quality ownership at every level, from plant floor associates to executive leadership.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives (e.g., Lean/Six Sigma tools applied to quality) to reduce waste, rework, and variability.
• Lead training and development programs to build quality and food safety competency across the manufacturing network.

• Bachelor's degree in Food Science, Microbiology, Chemistry, Engineering, or related field required; advanced degree a plus.
• 10+ years of progressive quality assurance/food safety leadership experience in food manufacturing,…