Bakery Plant Manager

Little Brothers Bakery is seeking a hands-on Plant Manager with strong experience in commercial bakery operations, baked goods production, food manufacturing, bakery equipment, ovens, refrigeration, sanitation, and food safety. This leader will oversee daily plant operations and guide a diverse team of production, quality, maintenance, and support personnel in operating and improving the bakery. The Plant Manager must be able to build sustainable processes, systems, and standards that support continuous improvement, operational consistency, accountability, quality, safety, service, cost control, and long-term growth.

This role requires a positive, practical leader who can communicate across all levels of the business, work in conjunction with all teams, learn the process alongside employees, refine workflows, and train staff by demonstrating how work should be done.

• Oversee manufacturing operations for a commercial baking facility consisting of 150 hourly associates and a management staff.
• Lead the achievement of a zero injury workplace.
• Responsible for all aspects of production and achieving key performance measurements related to personnel safety, quality and food safety, service, and cost, while continually improving process reliability and performance.

• Build a culture of mutual respect, teamwork, professionalism, accountability, and active support of the Company’s values and policies.

• Extend capabilities to meet market needs and support profitable growth of the products produced by the facility.
• Build an organization that is customer focused, flexible, and has strong business acumen.
• Ensure compliance with all relevant regulations.

• Oversee bread and bakery product production from ingredient preparation through mixing, baking, cooling, packaging, and finished product flow.

• Partner with R&D and Quality to support product development, gold standard quality, product consistency, and successful production scale-up.

• Work closely with Finance and the Chief Financial Officer to develop budgets and support the Annual Operating Plan.

• Manage capital projects to improve Operations measures in the areas of capacity growth, production efficiencies, Quality, and Safety.
• Responsible for meeting Quality, Safety, Reliability, and Cost targets for plant operations.

• Identify and eliminate operational losses by using critical thinking, root-cause problem solving, and practical continuous improvement methods.

• Provide daily production supervision, floor leadership, and coaching to ensure bakery schedules, quality standards, sanitation requirements, and safety expectations are met.

• Complete annual Performance Appraisal for direct report.
• Ensure employee accountability for performance.

• Ensure projects and process changes follow standard policies, procedures, and methodology.

• Drive projects from both tactical and strategic perspectives while balancing production needs, resources, and long-term business goals.

• Develop, implement, and sustain processes, systems, and standard work practices that drive continuous improvement across Quality, Safety, Production, Maintenance, and Cost performance.

• Partner cross-functionally with Operations, Quality, Maintenance, R&D, Finance, Human Resources, and other teams to align priorities, resolve issues, and support business objectives.

• Bachelor's degree in related field (i.e. Operations Management, Engineering, etc.);
  Master's or Technical degree strongly preferred.
• A minimum of seven to ten years progressive responsibilities within plant management required; food industry professionals strongly preferred.

• Previous experience leading initiatives that improve Quality, Food Safety, Production, Equipment Maintenance, Sanitation, and Continuous Improvement within a food manufacturing or bakery environment. Food safety certification, such as HACCP, and Cal/OSHA knowledge are desired.

• Demonstrated ability to create, document, implement, and improve operational processes and systems that support continuous improvement, accountability, and measurable bakery performance results.

• Ability to learn bakery processes alongside the team, understand current workflows, identify…