Head of Technical

The Role

A key leadership vacancy forming a pivotal part of the site leadership team, reporting to the site director. This role will directly manage and lead the technical, quality and hygiene teams. The incumbent will ensure the creation of a compelling vision and technical strategy aligned to business and group priorities, aHead of market competition, that empowers people to deliver the strategy and ensures that the technical policies and procedures comply with and focus on food safety, legality, quality and hygiene. The role takes responsibility for a very broad range of cross functional influence across the site and Karro group, to ensure that the highest standards of food safety of our products and processes are maintained and improved.

Company Information

Sofina Foods is more than just a food company. It’s a place where you can grow your career, learn new skills, and make a positive impact on the world.
With a wide range of meat and seafood products that delight consumers worldwide, Sofina Foods is always looking for talented and passionate people to join its team of over 13,000 employees across 40 sites in Canada and Europe, including Young’s Seafood and Karro Food Group.
At Sofina Foods, you will be part of a culture that values innovation, quality, sustainability, and customer satisfaction. You will also have the opportunity to work with diverse and delicious products that are sourced responsibly and sustainably from over 50 different protein sources from 5 continents.
Sofina Foods has a 25 year history of excellence in the food industry and provides over 500 million meals for the global market every year.
Our vision is to be the most successful food company in the worldIf you are looking for a rewarding and exciting career in the food sector, Sofina Foods is the place for you.

Key Accountabilities

• Overall responsibility for the site’s technical objectives with a focus to drive food safety; legality; raw material and product quality; customer, product and hygiene standards. Process improvements and customer technical & associated commercial relationships
• Develop a proactive compelling technical strategy, aligned to group priorities but also with a focus on excellence in quality, that enthuses the customers and is practical for delivery
• Creating a high performance, collaborative and empowered culture influencing effectively at all levels at site and across the business matrix
• Developing effective talent pipelines within the function, through people development, coaching and mentoring
• Ensuring effective working relations and providing key senior technical interface with cross-functional and internal/external stakeholders; customers, government organisations, NGO’s, laboratory, business critical raw material suppliers
• Providing clear, concise and accurate advice in the areas of food safety, legality and the environment thereby minimising the company’s exposure to risk and loss
• Ensuring the operation of the technical, quality and hygiene auditing functions attain minimum legislative, business and customer requirements
• Responsibility in the effective management of site business continuity and crisis management, inclusive of public recall situations
• Control the development and implementation of HACCP and quality management systems
• Ensuring departmental functions are effective and efficient in their roles, ensuring business and customer requirements are met or to cease production that is not compliant with technical policies and procedures
• Responsibility for food safety, quality and technical issues from intake, process, production through to dispatch
• Drive the completion of the site and customer’s KPI’s, whilst ensuring they are fit for purpose
• Overall responsibility for traceability and documentation control
• Budget management

Skills and Experience Required

• Significant experience of working in a strategic site technical leadership role within a meat manufacturing factory environment
• A senior operator who understands the fundamentals of all associated technical disciplines and has experience of engaging, leading and motivating technical and hygiene teams
• Technically and commercially astute, safety and legality focused
• Detailed understanding of the context of and compliance with UK legislation and directives in relation to areas governing food safety, legality and the environment
• A proactive, change orientated leader with good inter-personal skills, who will 'sell’ technical visions passionately to customers, teams and employees and embrace and effect change
• Able to develop and lead the technical function effectively, employing coaching and mentoring and effective talent succession planning
• An ability to communicate effectively and influence at all levels, plus a proactive collaboration with other disciplines within the business
• Level 4 HACCP and food safety is essential
• Decision-maker, able to exercise judgement and take responsibility for the consequences of actions and decisions
• A continuous improvement mindset

Benefits

• Competitive Salary
• Competitive Contributory Pension
• Online Benefits Hub
• Life assurance scheme