Requirements: English
Company: WhatJobs
Region: Zottegem , Flanders
The Central Quality and Food Safety Director is responsible for establishing and overseeing global quality and food safety standards within the bakery business. This role ensures compliance with regulatory requirements, customer expectations, and industry best practices across all regions. The role requires strategic leadership to drive continuous improvement in food safety culture, quality systems, and risk management across the companys operations and supply chain. The BU Frozen Quality and Food Safety Director must serve as the leading ambassador of the operational and supply chain excellence strategy and roadmap, ensuring that quality and food safety aspects are well-defined and seamlessly integrated with other elements of the overall product leadership strategy enabling and supporting the broader business objectives.
Function
- Quality and Food Safety strategy: Define and implement a Quality and Food Safety strategy aligned with the overall Product Leadership strategy and related business goals.
- Develop and maintain a robust Quality and Food Safety Management System with clear global policies and standards across all production sites and the supply chain, including supplier quality assurance programs, ensuring compliance with raw material and packaging specifications.
- Ensure compliance with international food safety regulations and standards (e.g. IFS, BRCGS, FSSC22000, FSMA, AIB,...)
- Lead crisis management and response for escalated quality and food safety incidents, ensuring timely and effective mitigation and resolution.
- Monitor and analyze overall quality and food safety performance metrics and conduct regular risk assessments and audits to drive continuous improvements supported by the OPEX tools and principles.
- Champion a quality and food safety culture across all levels of the organization supported by the relevant and effective training and development programs.
- Support future business developments as new product and process development, investment projects, and merger and acquisition activities, by embedding and managing relevant quality and food safety standards from the early phases of the projects .
- Lead a team of regional quality and food safety professionals and ensuring a smooth and effective collaboration with the local quality teams.
- Foster collaboration with cross-functional teams, including R&D, Supply Chain, Operations, and Commercial teams. Establish strong partnerships with key customers and regulatory agencies to maintain transparency and trust.
The BU Frozen quality and food safety director role reports directly to the VP of Operations and is an integral part of the operations and supply chain leadership team.
Your Profile
This role is ideal for a passionate leader in quality and food safety management, who wants to lead initiatives that enhance quality and food safety standards based on their criticality and business relevance in a fast growing and entrepreneurial organization.
- Education: Masters degree in Food Science, Microbiology, Chemistry, or a related field.
- Experience :10+ years of experience in food quality and safety roles within a global food manufacturing business. Expertise in food microbiology, allergen management, sanitation, and traceability systems. Strong understanding of global food safety and quality regulations (e.g., IFS, BRCGS, FSSC22000, FSMA, AIB,...)
- Leadership: Proven track record in leading cross-functional and regional teams and driving change at an organizational level.
- Language Proficiency: Proficient in English, additional languages are a plus.
- Travel Requirements: Willingness to travel (30%-50% of the time) as needed to support operations globally.
- Managing vision and strategy: Ability to set long-term vision and drive organization-wide quality and food safety improvements that align with business objectives and needs.
- Leadership & change management: Proven capability to inspire and lead teams through change, fostering a shared vision and ensuring accountability for results. Strong ability to engage, interact and communicate with stakeholders at all levels, including senior executives, suppliers, and regulators.
- Problem-Solving and risk management: Expertise in identifying, assessing, and mitigating food safety and quality risks. Analytical and decisive thinker who can diagnose issues and implement effective solutions and simple processes within the operational and entrepreneurial landscape.
Our Offer
- You will join an internationa