Associate Food Safety & Quality Manager - Hannibal Plant

OVERVIEW

This position will provide leadership for food safety and sanitation programs across one of the largest plants in General Mills, supporting multiple platforms. This position has salaried direct reports and is accountable for the Food Safety & Quality wage staff and supplies budget. In this role, you can develop people leadership skills, influencing skills, project management skills, and technical food safety and quality skills in a dynamic, complex manufacturing plant.

This position will be a technical leader related to the products, championing Food Safety, Quality, and Regulatory requirements throughout Hannibal, driving robust problem solving and improvements in Food Safety, Quality, and related losses. They also have the unique opportunity to impact the Innovation, Technology, and Quality function by leveraging their plant-wide technical knowledge and skills to provide deep technical expertise, become leaders of global connections.

They apply continuous improvement techniques and digitization initiatives, leveraging advanced technologies such as automation and data analytics, and systems to enhance quality processes, improve product performance, and ensure compliance with industry standards. They serve as coaches and technical leaders on the floor and within the business teams they partner with, demonstrating and embracing engaging leadership behaviors.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

Safety

• Lead Food and Human Safety through Safety 2.0 leadership principles and standards.
• Cultivate Human Safety Culture that reduces risk to our people and communities by increasing capability to identify and control critical risk.
• Cultivate Food Safety Culture that is committed to manufacturing safe food that is compliant with policy and regulatory requirements.
• Lead the Food Safety Team for Hannibal, driving change through RMP and other food safety initiatives.

People Leadership

• Role model Engaging Leader behaviors.
• Demonstrate strong learning mindset for personal development & growth in expanded areas of subject matter expertise
• Engage internally and externally (NA & globally) with cross-functional partners and Subject Matter Experts and demonstrate quality engineering skills.
• Train, develop content, and coach QAs, QEs, and plant personnel (Systems Engineers, Manufacturing Engineering Associates, operators, plant leaders, etc.) as needed
• Build alignment & strategies with cross-functional partners across the plant.
• Leadership of FSQ technicians, FSQ professionals, and mentoring others.

Process Leadership and Ownership

• Food Safety, Quality & Regulatory programs leadership.
  • Provide FSQ leadership and direction through technical depth in the areas of regulatory compliance, sanitation, food safety risk mitigation, quality improvement, and loss reduction.
  • Synthesize plant-wide action plans with Operations, R&D, Engineering, and FSQ teams to ensure product specifications and execution of FSQ policies & standards are appropriate and meet system capability and key consumer requirements.
• Food Safety, Quality & Regulatory technical leadership & subject matter expertise.
  • Lead plantwide Food Safety and Quality Program management and training.
  • Deliver training in the areas of food science, applied statistics, regulatory requirements, sanitation, and quality measurement systems. Review plans for new and changing systems and ensure effective product safety and sanitary design.
  • Serve as experts in systems/programs with cross-plant / corporate/global connections.
  • Provide leadership and technical support for R&D, HMM, reformulations, and new product start-ups across the site.
  • Maintain plant food safety programs (FSRA, HACCP, etc.) and annual GFSI and GMI policy requirements.
  • Responsible for management of raw material vendors and performance.
  • Provide sanitation and pest control leadership (equipment sanitation validation & run length validations, creation of SSOPs, pest control and chemical vendor relationships, and budget).
  • Provide national accounts customer-facing support for food safety and quality audits and improvement.
  • Provide technical leadership in the identification and implementation of product and process quality improvement opportunities and resultant productivity gains.
  • Provide and lead risk assessment analysis and manage issues with non-conforming products to ensure proper control, minimize losses, and root cause analysis to eliminate future occurrences across the plant.

Problem Solving Leadership

• Provide FSQ leadership and direction through technical depth in the areas of SPC, system capability, fishbone analysis & problem solving
• Lead problem-solving events of strategic value to the plant with cross-functional partners and apply DMAIC / Six Sigma approach and data to appropriately manage non-conformances and issues, prevent re-occurrence, improve product quality, reduce and eliminate risks & related losses, and run to target.

DSU, DDS, and Operations Foundational Systems

• Engage in identification of loss opportunities (food safety, quality, overuse, etc.) to drive performance and influence loss reduction through corrective and preventative actions using foundation systems.
• Actively participate in daily direction setting, and the creation and execution of the platform improvement plan.

Know your Operation, Data, and Technology

• Lead digitization initiatives, leveraging advanced technologies such as automation, data analytics, and digitalization to enhance quality processes, improve product performance, and ensure plant wide compliance with industry standards.
• Using quality engineering principles, collect, analyze, and interpret in-process and analytical data to make quality and food safety evaluations, recommend actions for improvement and ultimately plant wide informed data driven decisions.
• Showcase expertise across Problem Solving, FSQ systems and Data & Analytics tools and coach & mentor QEs and other roles across the plant.
• Identify & execute plant-wide HMM (cost savings), Food Safety, and Quality initiatives

Back-Up Coverage

• This position will also provide backup support as needed to technical partners on the platform team (SE, QE, and Maintenance) and plant FSQ Manager ensuring business continuity and operational efficiency.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor's Degree in Engineering, Chemical, or Food Science
• 7 years of manufacturing experience with relevant quality or food safety experience
• Demonstrated ability to manage cross-platform projects and be comfortable with ambiguity.
• Proven ability to work well on a team, build effective relationships and influence others across all levels of the organization.
• Strategic mindset and be able to develop long-term impactful strategies such as RMP creation, capital planning, budgeting, and HMM (Cost savings) development.
• Ability to effectively work with and coach cross-functional teams.
• Demonstrated mechanical aptitude, ability to apply engineering principles, and ability to troubleshoot.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to lead constructive, positive change within a plant environment.
• Ability to develop mutual respect with operators, engineers, etc. to execute programs and achieve goals.
• Ability to lead peer group and affect change/department direction via influence management.
• Clear, concise, well-directed communication.
• Learning mindset, curious and courageous
• Demonstrated knowledge of statistics and related systems (e.g., Minitab), data reporting platforms (e.g., MA, Power BI, Tableau, etc.), MES platforms (e.g., MQIS), advanced analytics and tools (e.g., Seeq, Sight Machine), and FSQ and Supply Chain systems knowledge (WiMS, MES, ERP, etc.)
• Strong knowledge of in-process measurement/detection capabilities (e.g., NIR, Vision systems)

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• 9 years of manufacturing experience in a food safety or quality environment
• Certified Quality Engineer by third-party organization or Six Sigma Green Belt certified.
• People leadership experience
• Strong understanding of product quality, sensory, and food safety.
• Demonstrated mechanical aptitude, ability to apply engineering principles, and ability to troubleshoot.
• Demonstrated leadership and initiative.
• Demonstrated ability to navigate complex organizations.
• Plant Quality Engineer, manufacturing, or auditing/consulting experience.
• FSQ/XQM/ESC Experience
• Ability to communicate with leadership team to gain broad support for ideas.

ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS

• Applicants for this position must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis, and General Mills will not sponsor applicants for this position for work visas.
• International relocations or remote assignments will not be considered for this role.

We exist to make food the world loves. But we do more than that. Our company is a place that prioritizes being a force for good, a place to expand learning, explore new perspectives and reimagine new possibilities, every day. We look for people who want to bring their best - bold thinkers with big hearts who challenge one other and grow together. Because becoming the undisputed leader in food means surrounding ourselves with people who are hungry for what's next.

Salary Range

The salary range for this position is $108900.00 - $163500.00 / Annually. At General Mills we strive for each employee's pay at any point in their career to reflect their experiences performance and skills for their current role. The salary range for this role represents the numerous factors considered in the hiring decisions including, but not limited to, educations, skills, work experience, certifications, etc. As such, pay for the successful candidate(s) could fall anywhere within the stated range. Beyond base salary, General Mills offers a competitive Total Rewards package focusing on your overall well-being. We are proud to offer a foundation of health benefits, retirement and financial wellbeing, time off programs, wellbeing support and perks. Benefits may vary by role, country, region, union status, and other employment status factors. You may also be eligible to participate in an annual incentive program. An incentive award, if any, depends on various factors, including, individual and organizational performance.

Reasonable Accommodation Request

If you need to request an accommodation during the application or hiring process, please fill out our online accommodations request form by following this link: Accommodations Request.