Regional Food Safety Manager - Americas

About the role

Barry Callebaut is a global organization poised for growth; a company which has embraced the vision to delight its customers, while out-performing its competitors, a business which is committed to sustainability, has innovation in its DNA, is a leader in complex manufacturing and supply chain solutions and is focused on being a best-in-class employer. Barry Callebaut seeks diverse and passionate people who thrive in a dynamic environment, focused on continuous learning, living Barry Callebaut’s Values and of course loving chocolate.

The Regional Food Safety Manager Americas is responsible for keeping abreast of changes in technology and processes and ensuring compliance for the facilities in the Americas region to Barry Callebaut food safety policies, standards, and procedures as needed to ensure that regulatory, GFSI certification and customer requirements concerning food safety are achieved or exceeded. The Food Safety Manager Americas is a regional subject matter expert on Sanitation, Sanitary Hygienic Design, Hygienic Zoning, Environmental Monitoring.

This role is expected to have expert level knowledge on one or more of key food safety topics such as Allergens, Microbiology and Toxicology.

The Food Safety Manager Americas links and collaborates with Plant QA managers, Engineering, Plant managers, Regional R&D, Regional OSCO VP, Global Account manager, Business Development Director, Regional Quality director, Global Head Food Safety and microbiology, Global Engineering, Global Microbiology, Global QA (Vendor & Rawmat), Sanitation & Hygiene managers, and with similar stakeholders from all the other regions (Africa, Americas, Asia, Cocoa).

Externally with external customers, training organizations, suppliers, and service providers including but not limited to pest control operators, metal detector manufacturers, sanitarians, and industry consultants.

• Strategic Leadership
  • Develop and execute a comprehensive regional food safety strategy that aligns with product needs, corporate objectives and regulatory requirements.
  • Provide visionary leadership to continuously improve food safety systems, ensuring alignment with industry best practices and emerging trends.
• FSMS Program Development and Implementation
  • Oversee the design, implementation, and maintenance of aligned food safety programs, including HACCP, EMP programs, foreign material management, microbiology, allergen and toxicology compliance; tailored to regional needs.
  • Standardize processes and procedures across facilities to achieve consistent food safety performance.
  • Ensure on-going risk assessments to identify potential & emerging food safety hazards and implement preventive controls.
  • Conduct risk assessment on any new project or initiative launched cross functionally.
  • Monitor and respond to emerging food safety risks, including regulatory changes and industry developments, to ensure proactive compliance.
  • Conduct site gap assessments on HACCP, EMP management and provide technical support to sites in arriving at mitigation/management strategies.
  • Ensure gaps from different audits and observations are correctly identified, root cause investigations done, corrections and corrective actions identified with appropriate owners together with deadlines and ensure systematic follow up and escalations to ensure closure and compliance.
• Global FS Standards such as Non-Negotiable Standards and other Food Safety Performance Improvement Projects
  • Contribute to the building of global food safety standards.
  • Act as the regional expert on interpretation on the NNS Standards. Organise regular training sessions to address understanding gaps, support site gap analysis, share best practices and validate action plans.
  • Identify, plan, and execute strategic food safety improvement projects such as Allergen Management that address critical gaps or inefficiencies in existing systems.
• Food Safety CAPEX Program Governance
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams to implement Food safety capex projects.
  • Maintain a tracker of all FS CAPEX needs across sites and prioritise those basis risk assessment.
  • Work with Global FS CAPEX team to support allocation of…