Director of Quality

The Director of Quality is responsible for leading Midwest Co-Pack's Quality Assurance, Food Safety, Sanitation, Regulatory Compliance, and Quality Systems to ensure products consistently meet customer, regulatory, and company requirements. This position oversees the site's quality organization, laboratory operations, sanitation programs, customer quality initiatives, and quality management systems while partnering closely with Operations, Maintenance, Engineering, Commercialization, and Supply Chain to support safe, efficient, and compliant manufacturing.

• Lead and maintain the site's Food Safety and Quality Management Systems.
• Develop, implement, maintain, and continuously improve food safety and quality programs to ensure compliance with FDA regulations, FSMA, HACCP, GMPs, Preventive Controls, and customer quality requirements.
• Maintain quality manuals, specifications, standard operating procedures (SOPs), work instructions, quality documentation, and document control systems.
• Lead the Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA) program, including root cause analysis, corrective action implementation, effectiveness verification, and continuous improvement.
• Manage product holds, deviations, non-conforming product investigations, and product disposition decisions.
• Ensure the facility maintains audit readiness and successfully completes FDA inspections, customer audits, and third-party food safety audits, including BRCGS certification.

• Direct laboratory operations, testing programs, environmental monitoring, and quality verification activities.
• Ensure raw material, in-process, environmental, and finished product testing requirements are completed accurately and on time.
• Review quality data, customer feedback, and performance metrics to identify trends, risks, and improvement opportunities.
• Serve as the primary quality representative during customer visits, facility tours, technical meetings, commercialization activities, audits, and quality reviews.
• Support successful commercialization of new products while maintaining established quality standards.
• Develop and maintain strong working relationships with customer quality and technical teams through responsive communication, technical expertise, and professional representation of Midwest Co-Pack.
• Lead customer complaint investigations and ensure timely, accurate, and professional corrective action responses.
• Review customer specifications and quality requirements while partnering with Operations, Engineering, Commercialization, and Supply Chain to successfully launch new products and implement process improvements.

• Direct the site's sanitation and environmental monitoring programs to ensure compliance with food safety and quality standards.
• Ensure sanitation verification activities, GMP compliance, and housekeeping standards consistently meet company, customer, and regulatory expectations.
• Manage specialty certification programs including USDA Organic certification through QAI, allergen management, gluten-free, CFR
  110, and other customer-specific certification requirements.

• Lead, coach, and develop Quality Technicians, sanitation personnel, and other direct reports.
• Establish departmental goals, priorities, staffing plans, and performance expectations aligned with business objectives.
• Conduct performance evaluations, provide coaching, and develop succession and employee development plans.
• Develop and deliver training programs related to food safety, GMPs, sanitation, quality systems, regulatory requirements, and customer standards.
• Foster a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, customer focus, and operational excellence throughout the Quality organization.
• Partner with Operations to reduce customer complaints, internal defects, product waste, rework, and quality-related downtime.
• Lead cross-functional root cause investigations and continuous improvement initiatives using structured problem-solving methodologies.
• Monitor quality KPIs and communicate trends, risks, and improvement opportunities to plant leadership.
• Support capital projects, equipment installations, and process improvements by ensuring food safety and quality requirements are incorporated into project design and implementation.

To perform…