Fresh Produce Quality and Inventory Control

Position Description DiCarlo Food Service

Hours:

Sunday
- Thursday 9:00 AM - 5:00 PMPay rate: $20-$30/hr depending on experience

Hours:

Sunday
- Thursday 9:00 AM - 5:00 PMPay rate: $20-$30/hr depending on experience

DiCarlo is a family-owned and operated food service distributor with a strong legacy of reliability and customer focus. Since 1963, we have provided the finest quality products to independent and multi-unit restaurants across the Northeast.

The Fresh Produce Quality & Inventory Control Associate inspects inbound, stored, and outbound fresh produce while maintaining accurate inventory records. The role ensures products meet company, customer, and applicable regulatory standards for quality, condition, temperature, size, maturity, packaging, food safety, quantity, lot traceability, and shelf life. This position works closely with Purchasing, Operations, and Sales to prevent quality issues, reduce shrink, improve inventory accuracy, and ensure customers receive consistent, high-quality produce.

• Inspect inbound fresh produce shipments for quality, condition, temperature, count, size, color, maturity, firmness, defects, decay, damage, and conformity with purchase specifications.
• Accept, place on hold, or recommend rejection of product based on established quality standards and promptly communicate findings to Purchasing and Operations.
• Perform daily warehouse and cooler inspections to monitor product condition, proper rotation, storage temperature, sanitation, and remaining shelf life.
• Conduct outbound quality checks and random shipping audits to verify that produce selected for customers meets company and customer requirements.
• Document inspection results accurately, including temperatures, defects, disposition decisions, corrective actions, and photographs when appropriate.
• Identify recurring quality issues and collaborate with suppliers, growers, Purchasing, and warehouse teams to resolve problems and improve product consistency.
• Support inventory rotation and disposition decisions by recommending priority use, rework, salvage, donation, or disposal when appropriate.
• Maintain accurate fresh produce inventory by performing routine physical inventories.
• Investigate inventory discrepancies, shorts, overages, substitutions, mis-picks, and location errors; document root causes and coordinate corrections with warehouse leadership.
• Monitor aging inventory, shelf life, product movement, and stock levels; communicate slow-moving, excess, short-dated, or at-risk items to Purchasing, Sales, and Operations.
• Ensure produce is properly received, labeled, slotted, rotated, and issued using first-in, first-out and first-expired, first-out practices.
• Review daily receiving, transfer, picking, shipping, adjustment, and return transactions to confirm inventory movements are recorded accurately in the warehouse management system.
• Track and report produce shrink, spoilage, damage, aging, inventory variances, and other key performance measures; recommend corrective actions to reduce product loss.
• Follow all company food safety, sanitation, Good Manufacturing Practices, workplace safety, and cold-chain procedures; assist with product recalls and regulatory or third-party inspections as needed.

• Knowledge of fresh produce varieties, seasonality, common defects, quality grades, ripening, handling, and storage requirements.
• Strong attention to detail, sound judgment, and the ability to make timely product disposition decisions.
• Effective verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to work professionally with suppliers, customers, and internal departments.
• Ability to work in refrigerated warehouse environments, stand and walk for extended periods, bend and reach, and safely lift and handle produce cases in accordance with company requirements.
• Basic proficiency with Microsoft Outlook, Word, and Excel; experience entering inspection results into a quality or warehouse system is preferred.
• Experience with produce inventory control, cycle counting, lot tracking, FIFO/FEFO rotation, and warehouse management or inventory systems is preferred.

Medical, Dental, Vision, Life Insurance, Health Savings Account, 401(k), and…