Production Manager

Job Summary

Are you ready to lead a high-performing manufacturing team while driving safely, operational excellence, and continuous improvement in a dynamic food ingredients operation?

Innovating improved nutritional profiles, better taste and texture, and greater cost efficiency to meet the needs of global food and beverage manufacturers.

The Production Manager role is based in Memphis, Tennessee (onsite role). Be part of a collaborative, growth-oriented, resilient, and solution-focused team where together we can achieve greatness and make a real impact. Your potential is our inspiration.

The Production Manager is a key member of the Site Leadership Team responsible for leading manufacturing operations to achieve excellence in safety, food safety, quality, service, cost performance, employee engagement, and continuous improvement. This role provides strategic direction, operational leadership, and talent development while fostering a culture of accountability, ownership, teamwork, and operational excellence.

The successful candidate will maintain a visible presence within the operation, engage employees at all levels, develop future leaders, and empower teams to consistently deliver business results.

• Lead all aspects of daily manufacturing operations to achieve production, packaging, quality, customer service, and cost objectives.
• Coach, mentor, and develop supervisors, unit leaders, and production teams to strengthen capabilities, engagement, accountability, and succession readiness.
• Establish clear performance expectations and drive accountability through effective performance management, coaching, recognition, development planning, and corrective action when appropriate.
• Champion a culture where safety, food safety, quality, and compliance are fundamental to every operational decision and are embraced daily by all employees.
• Ensure compliance with Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points, Good Manufacturing Practices, Process Safety Management requirements, environmental regulations, sanitation standards, Management of Change processes, and company policies.
• Lead incident investigations, root cause analyses, and corrective action implementation to improve operational reliability, reduce risk, and strengthen site performance.
• Drive operational excellence initiatives utilizing Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, and continuous improvement methodologies to improve productivity, yield, throughput, efficiency, and overall operational performance.
• Monitor and improve key performance indicators including Overall Equipment Effectiveness, downtime, capacity utilization, labor productivity, manufacturing costs, and service performance.
• Partner with Supply Chain, Maintenance, Engineering, Quality, Environmental Health and Safety, and other stakeholders to achieve site objectives, solve operational challenges, and support continuous improvement.

• Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering, Food Science, Operations Management, Manufacturing, or a related technical discipline.
• Minimum of 10 years of progressive manufacturing experience, preferably within food, ingredients, chemical, or other regulated manufacturing environments.
• Minimum of 6 years of leadership experience managing production teams in a manufacturing setting.
• Demonstrated experience leading large operational teams, developing supervisors and frontline leaders, and building high-performance, accountable cultures.
• Strong knowledge of food safety, quality systems, Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points, Good Manufacturing Practices, Process Safety Management, Management of Change, and regulatory compliance requirements.
• Proven success leading Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, Root Cause Failure Analysis, or similar continuous improvement initiatives that improve operational and financial performance.
• Experience managing operational budgets, fixed and variable costs, productivity initiatives, and performance metrics to achieve business goals.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, communication, conflict resolution, and decision-making skills.
• Demonstrated ability to lead through influence, hold others accountable with fairness and respect, and effectively collaborate across functions.

• Six Sigma Green Belt, Black Belt, or comparable continuous improvement certification.
• Leads by example, develops people, communicates effectively, takes initiative, solves problems proactively, and creates a culture where safety, quality, teamwork, and operational excellence thrive.
• Demonstrated success leading culture transformation initiatives focused on accountability, engagement, ownership, teamwork, and operational excellence.

The successful candidate will be a visible and engaged leader who:

• Leads with accountability,…