Plant Controller

Position Overview

The Plant Controller is the senior finance leader for the manufacturing facility and a key business partner to plant leadership. This role is responsible for the integrity of plant financial reporting, cost accounting, inventory controls, budgeting and forecasting, performance analysis, and financial controls. The Plant Controller translates operational activity into clear financial insight and helps leaders understand the cost, margin, labor, yield, waste, and productivity implications of business decisions.

In a food manufacturing environment, the successful candidate will combine strong accounting discipline with a hands‑on understanding of plant operations. The role works closely with Operations, Supply Chain, Procurement, FSQA, Engineering/Maintenance, Human Resources, and corporate Finance to improve profitability, strengthen controls, and support safe, reliable, efficient production.

• Own plant-level financial reporting, month-end close, account reconciliations, journal entries, accruals, and variance analysis; ensure timely and accurate results in accordance with company policy and applicable accounting standards.
• Lead plant budgeting, forecasting, and periodic outlook processes, including labor, overhead, materials, production volumes, capital spending, and operating expenses.
• Maintain and improve standard costing, including bills of material, routings, labor and overhead rates, purchase price variance, material usage, yield, scrap, waste, and manufacturing variances.
• Analyze plant performance and convert financial and operational data into actionable insights for plant leadership; identify trends, risks, root causes, and opportunities.
• Partner with Operations to improve productivity, conversion cost, labor utilization, throughput, yield, waste reduction, and overall plant profitability.
• Oversee inventory accounting and controls, including raw materials, packaging, work-in-process, finished goods, cycle counts, physical inventories, reserves, adjustments, and inventory accuracy.
• Establish and maintain effective internal controls over plant financial processes, assets, inventory, purchasing, capital expenditures, and other areas of financial risk.
• Support capital expenditure requests and post-investment reviews through financial modeling, ROI/payback analysis, project tracking, and validation of expected benefits.
• Prepare and communicate plant KPIs and management reporting, including cost per unit/pound/case, labor efficiency, material usage, yield, waste, overhead absorption, inventory, and spending performance.
• Partner with Procurement and Supply Chain on commodity, ingredient, packaging, freight, and supplier cost analysis and the financial implications of sourcing decisions.
• Support new product introductions, customer/product profitability analysis, make-versus-buy decisions, pricing inputs, and other business cases as needed.
• Coordinate plant support for internal and external audits and ensure documentation, reconciliations, and controls are audit-ready.
• Ensure appropriate segregation of duties and compliance with corporate policies, financial procedures, and approval authorities.
• Develop finance capability within the plant; provide coaching and financial acumen to operational leaders and supervise plant accounting staff where applicable.
• Participate actively on the plant leadership team and contribute to continuous improvement, Lean, productivity, and cost-reduction initiatives.

• 5-8+ years of progressive accounting and finance experience, with meaningful experience in manufacturing.
• Food, beverage, consumer packaged goods, or other high-volume/process manufacturing experience strongly preferred.
• Strong plant cost accounting experience, including standard costing, inventory, manufacturing variances, labor and overhead analysis, and margin analysis.
• Demonstrated experience partnering directly with plant operations and influencing decisions through financial analysis.
• Experience with annual budgeting, forecasting, month-end close, internal controls, and financial reporting.
• Working knowledge of ERP and manufacturing systems;…