Senior Manager of Quality & Food Safety Innovation Manager

The Senior Manager of Quality & Food Safety is responsible for the leadership, development, execution, and continuous improvement of Mama Lola’s Quality and Food Safety Management Systems.

This position serves as the senior operational leader for all matters involving food safety, product quality, regulatory compliance, customer specifications, supplier quality, certification programs, sanitation verification, product release, investigations, corrective and preventive actions, and continuous improvement of quality systems.

The Senior Manager is expected to provide strong, independent leadership and maintain the authority necessary to protect Mama Lola’s products, customers, consumers, and brand.

This position has the authority to place product on hold, stop production, prevent product release, reject incoming materials, and elevate food safety or quality concerns directly to executive leadership whenever product integrity may be compromised.

The successful candidate must be comfortable operating in a fast-paced food manufacturing environment and equally capable of leading on the production floor, managing technical systems, interacting with customers and regulators, developing employees, and providing clear fact-based recommendations to senior management.

• Lead the Mama Lola’s Quality and Food Safety department and establish clear expectations, accountability, priorities, and performance standards for the team.
• Maintain an independent Quality and Food Safety function capable of objectively evaluating manufacturing operations and product compliance.
• Develop a strong plant-wide food safety and quality culture in partnership with Operations, Maintenance, Sanitation, Supply Chain, Sales, Product Development, and Executive Leadership.
• Ensure food safety and product quality concerns are promptly identified, investigated, documented, escalated, and resolved.
• Serve as a senior technical resource to executive leadership regarding food safety, regulatory, customer, supplier, and product quality matters.
• Establish departmental KPIs and routinely report trends, risks, corrective actions, and system performance to executive management.

• Serve as the facility's designated SQF Practitioner.
• Maintain compliance with current SQF Code requirements and ensure continued certification readiness.
• Maintain, review, verify, and continuously improve the facility's Food Safety Plan and supporting prerequisite programs.
• Lead HACCP/HARPC and preventive-control activities as applicable.
• Ensure hazards are properly identified, assessed, controlled, monitored, verified, and documented.
• Maintain audit readiness at all times rather than preparing solely in advance of scheduled audits.
• Coordinate SQF certification audits, customer audits, regulatory inspections, organic certification audits, and other third-party assessments.
• Lead responses and corrective actions resulting from audits, inspections, or identified system deficiencies.

Ensure facility and product compliance with applicable requirements including, as appropriate:

• U.S. Food and Drug Administration requirements
• Food Safety Modernization Act requirements
• Current Good Manufacturing Practices
• Preventive Controls for Human Food
• Food labeling requirements
• Allergen-control requirements
• Traceability and recall requirements
• USDA National Organic Program requirements
• Applicable state and local regulatory requirements
• Customer-specific and retailer-specific food safety standards

Maintain awareness of regulatory changes and proactively identify potential impacts to Mama Lola’s operations and products.

• Establish and maintain finished-product, in-process, raw-material, packaging, and operational quality standards.
• Ensure QA inspection and verification activities are properly designed, performed, documented, and reviewed.
• Oversee product release and disposition processes.
• Ensure non-conforming materials and products are appropriately identified, segregated, placed on hold, investigated, and dispositioned.
• Maintain effective product hold and release procedures with documented…