Sanitation Manager

If you are unable to complete this application due to a disability, contact this employer to ask for an accommodation or an alternative application process.

3 days ago Requisition

Senior Sanitation Manager

Position Summary

The Senior Sanitation Manager is a transformational leadership role responsible for designing, building, implementing, leading, and continuously improving the plant's sanitation operating system. This position is intended for an experienced food-manufacturing sanitation leader who can create the infrastructure required to support a world-class, large-scale food manufacturing operation - not simply supervise nightly cleaning.

The successful candidate will assess the current state, establish risk-based standards, create the required sanitation programs and documentation, build workforce capability, implement verification and performance-management systems, and develop a sustainable sanitation culture focused on food safety, employee safety, execution discipline, audit readiness, reliability, and continuous improvement.

• Design and implement the plant-wide sanitation operating framework, governance model, standards, routines, and accountability system.
• Create the Master Sanitation Schedule (MSS), equipment-specific Sanitation Standard Operating Procedures (SSOPs), area cleaning standards, cleaning frequencies, work instructions, inspection criteria, and required records.
• Define what must be cleaned, how it is cleaned, who owns the task, required frequency, chemicals and concentrations, temperature/contact-time requirements, PPE, LOTO requirements, verification method, acceptance criteria, and escalation process.
• Create standardized sanitation shift startup, execution, pre-operational readiness, handoff, and escalation processes.

• Conduct a comprehensive sanitation assessment of production equipment, process areas, floors, drains, walls, ceilings, overheads, platforms, piping, utilities, warehouses, coolers/freezers, ingredient areas, waste areas, and support spaces.
• Develop and maintain a sanitation risk register addressing microbiological, allergen, foreign-material, cross-contamination, cleaning-access, and hygienic-design risks.
• Prioritize high-risk assets and areas for enhanced cleaning frequency, verification, management oversight, and corrective action.

• Develop detailed procedures covering shutdown, safe isolation/LOTO, teardown, gross soil removal, rinsing, chemical application, mechanical action, contact time, final rinse, inspection, sanitizing, reassembly, verification, and release.
• Create visual standards where beneficial, including photographs or diagrams identifying teardown points, food-contact surfaces, difficult-to-clean locations, inspection points, and potential harborage areas.
• Ensure sanitation methods are practical, repeatable, trainable, and capable of producing consistent results regardless of the employee performing the work.

• Develop a layered sanitation verification system using appropriate methods such as visual inspection, ATP, protein/allergen testing, environmental monitoring, microbiological testing, chemical concentration verification, and pre-operational inspection.
• Establish defined acceptance criteria and a disciplined failure response: contain, reclean, reinspect, document, investigate, correct, and verify effectiveness.
• Drive improvement in first-pass pre-operational acceptance and eliminate repeat failures through structured root-cause analysis and corrective action.
• Ensure sanitation conducts an effective internal inspection before equipment or areas are presented for Quality/Food Safety verification.

• Partner with Quality/Food Safety to develop and sustain a risk-based environmental sanitation strategy, including sampling locations, frequencies, trend analysis, investigative sampling, escalation criteria, and corrective actions.
• Ensure sanitation practices support GMPs, HACCP/Food Safety Plans, Preventive Controls, allergen controls, pest prevention, foreign-material prevention, and applicable regulatory, customer, and GFSI-recognized requirements.
• Maintain a continuous audit-ready state rather than preparing sanitation systems only when an audit or customer visit is approaching.
• Build a formal sanitation training, qualification, and competency-verification system for sanitation employees, leads, and supervisors.
• Develop training covering sanitation fundamentals, food safety, chemicals, PPE, LOTO, equipment-specific cleaning, allergen controls, cross-contamination prevention, sanitation tools, environmental pathogen awareness, and pre-op expectations.
• Establish clear performance standards, coaching routines, accountability, and development paths for sanitation leadership.
• Create a strong…