Product Safety and Quality Advisor Senior - Innovation FSQ - Retail Packaging

Product Safety and Quality Advisor Senior - Innovation FSQ - Retail Packaging

Location:

Seattle, WA (4 days onsite)

Duration: 6 months

• Support packaging innovation initiatives through a quality and product safety lens, partnering with R&D and cross‑functional stakeholders to identify risks, assess feasibility, and enable safe, scalable adoption of new materials, designs, and technologies.
• Lead onboarding and qualification of new suppliers and manufacturing sites, ensuring compliance food safety, GMP, and packaging quality requirements, including risk assessments, audits, and readiness evaluations.
• Collaborate closely with R&D and Packaging Development teams to establish material, process, and performance qualification standards, ensuring packaging solutions are robust, fit for use, and compliant prior to commercialization. Provide quality oversight during pilot runs, scale‑ups, and first production, identifying gaps early and driving corrective actions to minimize downstream risk to retail operations.
• Assess manufacturing process capability (e.g., Cp/Cpk, control plans, validation activities) to confirm suppliers are capable of producing consistent, high-quality packaging before transitioning into full‑scale manufacturing.
• Act as a trusted quality advisor on innovation governance, balancing speed‑to‑market objectives commitment to product safety, quality, and customer trust.

• Supplier engagement and project alignment
• Lead and participate in regular supplier meetings to review packaging project requirements, confirm technical specifications, and align on qualification plans and testing protocols.
• Ensure suppliers clearly understand quality, safety, and performance expectations for new and innovative packaging materials.
• Cross‑functional collaboration with R&D and Innovation teams
• Partner closely with R&D and innovation stakeholders to review development samples, analyze testing results, and support evaluation of Tryer and simulation outcomes.
• Provide quality engineering input to identify risks, recommend improvements, and support design decisions throughout the development lifecycle.
• New supplier site onboarding and qualification
• Support the setup and qualification of new supplier manufacturing sites by gathering and reviewing required documentation (e.g., quality systems, certifications, process flows).
• Coordinate and support supplier audits to ensure compliance with quality, food safety, and manufacturing standards prior to approval.
• Product Safety Review (PSR) data management
• Collect, complete, and maintain Product Safety Review data for all active innovation projects. Ensure accuracy, completeness, and traceability of safety assessments to support internal approvals and regulatory compliance for new packaging solutions.
• Ongoing coordination with Supplier FSQ teams
• Maintain regular communication with supplier Food Safety & Quality (FSQ) teams to provide updates on program milestones, development changes, and testing progress.
• Proactively address quality or food safety concerns to keep innovation projects on track and aligned with launch timelines.

Interaction level with team:
Moderate to high based on daily needs

• Microsoft Office Suite
• Smartsheet's

BA preferred

3-5

• Experience developing and implementing quality programs and product standards or manufacturer and supplier quality system and product quality auditing with an emphasis in materials (3-5 years)
• Progressive experience managing the development and review of information required to comply with product safety and quality (3-5 years)
• Quality Management System knowledge including HACCP, GMPs, ISO or GFSI and BRC complaint standards.
• Basic understanding of Food Safety and Quality GFSI requirements.
• Collaborative
• Strong Communication
• Attention to detail
• Food contact packaging (paper, plastic, compostable fiber, ... etc)
• Disposable cups and lids,
• Non food contact packaging

• Retail Packaging
• Communication
• Application