Manufacturing Manager

Allied Bakeries are owned by Associated British Foods. ABF is a diversified international food, ingredients and retail group with sales of £20.1bn and 138,000 employees in 56 countries. It has significant businesses in Europe, Africa, the Americas, Asia and Australia. Our sister companies in ABF UK Grocery produce products under many market-leading household brands, including Jordans, Ryvita, Pataks, Blue Dragon & Silver Spoon.

We are proud of our brands: we make top 10 UK grocery brand Kingsmill as well as Allinson’s and Sunblest. You’ll know us best through our white, wholemeal and seeded market-leading loaves, as well as Kingsmill 50/50, the nation’s favourite Healthier White, and our delicious pancakes, crumpets, hot cross buns and other bakery products.

The success of our business depends on us having the right people on the team. We are incredibly passionate about our business, but it isn’t for the faint-hearted – it’s pacey and demanding so our people need to have a positive attitude and to want to work inclusively. We take massive pride in what we do, not least in how colleagues based in our bakeries and depots have one of the best safety performance records in the industry.

Our Grocery Service Centre, based near Liverpool, is a hub for transactional activity across multiple ABF companies within the ABF Grocery division. Supporting some of our well-known brands such as Kingsmill, Pataks, Blue Dragon, Jordans, Ryvita and Silver Spoon, amongst others. We deliver Shared Service activities across a wide range of disciplines including Customer Services, Consumer Care, Finance, Payroll, HR and IS.

If you’re looking to join a business that is passionate, encourages you to be the best you can be, and values its people, we’d love to hear from you.

An exciting opportunity has arisen at our West Bromwich bakery as a key member of the site management team you will safely lead and develop the manufacturing function through clear and inspirational leadership; ensuring optimal productivity and efficiency and that all manufacturing KPI’s are met. You are responsible for both the performance and health and safety of your function.

• Drive a safety culture by improving and maintaining a safe working environment, ensuring all team members are aware and complying with health and safety standards, legal and company requirements.
• Effective leadership, development and motivation of the manufacturing team to ensure high levels of performance and that all their KPI’s are met or exceeded.
• Whilst always optimising product quality, continually review manufacturing practices, identifying and implementing initiatives within your bakery or across bakeries that maximise the performance of the manufacturing function and reducing overall operating costs.
• Partnering the engineering and technical managers in delivering a food safe, reliable and effective manufacturing process.
• Working with the regional and national manufacturing team/wider AMB group to implement and support national initiatives and projects to ensure their successful implementation.
• Ensure compliance with relevant Environmental legislation and site procedures to include contractor control.
• To be an active member of the site/regional management team, fully participating in activities as required.
• Build and develop effective relationships with the management team on site to ensure cross functional working and with the wider AMB manufacturing team to ensure best practice is shared and the optimal performance of the function.

• Successful Leadership experience in a commercially challenging, results driven and fast paced manufacturing environment.
• A graduate in Manufacturing or Engineering related discipline (or equivalent) preferable.
• Excellent project management and presentation skills
• Strong leadership and development skills.
• Ability to build effective relationships, and the credibility to lead and influence at all levels of the business.
• A lateral thinker with good critical reasoning skills capable of identifying opportunities for improvement and delivering pragmatic solutions with high commercial acumen.
• Highly driven and results focused with the resilience to drive performance and change.