Plant Manager

Crestwood Partners are delighted to be supporting a well‑established, privately owned food manufacturer with the appointment of a Plant Manager for one of its key US operations.

This is a senior leadership role for someone who can take full ownership of day‑to‑day plant performance, strengthen the management team and build a more consistent, accountable and scalable operation.

The business is looking for a visible, hands‑on leader who is comfortable on the manufacturing floor, but who can also step back, develop people and improve the way the site is led.

The Plant Manager will lead a sizeable, multi‑shift food manufacturing operation and work closely with senior leadership to support the next stage of the site’s development.

The focus will be on improving operational discipline, raising leadership capability and creating clearer accountability across the plant.

This is not a role for someone who wants to lead from an office. The successful candidate will spend time with supervisors, managers and frontline employees, understand how the operation really works and build credibility across the site.

There is also genuine scope for the role to develop into a broader operations leadership position over time.

• Create a clear and consistent operating rhythm across all shifts
• Raise the capability and accountability of production supervisors and managers
• Improve how labour, materials and daily production priorities are managed
• Ensure customer orders are delivered safely, efficiently and to the required quality standards
• Strengthen communication between production, planning, quality, supply chain and warehousing
• Use operational data and KPIs to identify issues and drive practical action
• Improve schedule performance, workflow, labour efficiency and overtime control
• Lead continuous improvement and root‑cause activity across the plant
• Build stronger succession and development plans within the manufacturing team
• Support longer‑term capacity, cost and operational planning

We are looking for an experienced manufacturing leader who can demonstrate:

• Strong leadership experience within food, beverage or food‑ingredient manufacturing
• Responsibility for a sizeable, multi‑shift operation
• Experience leading supervisors, managers and large production teams
• A track record of coaching, developing and promoting people
• Strong knowledge of food safety, quality and regulatory compliance
• Experience improving plant KPIs, labour performance and operational flow
• Confidence working with ERP or MRP systems
• Experience leading change in a practical and people‑focused way
• Strong understanding of continuous improvement and root‑cause problem solving
• Financial awareness, including budgets, costs and resource planning
• The ability to work effectively across Quality, EHS, Supply Chain, Planning and Warehousing

A bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Operations, Manufacturing, Food Science, Business or a related discipline is preferred.

The successful candidate is likely to be:

• Calm, credible and measured
• Visible and approachable
• Collaborative, but comfortable holding people accountable
• Analytical and data‑led
• Hands‑on without becoming trapped in daily firefighting
• Able to build trust before making changes
• Focused on developing others rather than solving every problem personally
• Comfortable working within a privately owned, close‑knit business

The right person will be able to introduce stronger structure and accountability without making the culture feel overly corporate.