Quality Lead – Food Manufacturing

Sara Lee Australia; Gosford; On-site; AUD 90,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

Sara Lee Australia is seeking a hands-on Quality Lead to oversee the Lisarow site, balancing production floor work with managing food safety systems. You’ll coordinate audits, maintain procedures, and support diverse dessert products across the Central Coast.

Ideal candidates have QA/food safety experience in manufacturing, strong HACCP knowledge, and excellent cross-functional collaboration to drive improvements.

Qualifications

• Experience in quality assurance or food safety within food manufacturing.
• Solid understanding of food safety systems, HACCP and audit requirements.
• Experience coordinating external audits.
• Confidence managing non-conformances, investigations and corrective actions.
• Hands-on sampling, testing, inspections and quality control activities.
• Ability to manage competing priorities in a busy manufacturing environment.
• Qualification in Food Science or Food Technology, or equivalent practical experience.
• Strong communication across the business and ownership mindset.

Responsibilities

• Coordinate preparation for audits and keep the site audit-ready.
• Maintain and update food safety procedures, specifications and records.
• Conduct raw material and finished product inspections and sampling.
• Investigate quality issues, identify root causes and drive corrective actions.
• Develop understanding of ingredients, processes and products.
• Work with production and warehouse teams to uphold safety standards.
• Identify process improvements to reduce risks and improve quality.

Education

Food Science/Technology degree

Job description

At Sara Lee, we've been creating delicious desserts for Australian families for over 50 years. From our famous cheesecakes to our pies, crumbles and pastries, we're proud of the products we make and the people behind them.

We're looking for a hands-on Quality Lead to join our team at Lisarow.

This is a great opportunity for someone who enjoys the balance of being out on the production floor and managing the systems that keep our food safe and our standards high.

Reporting to the Quality, Environment & Safety Manager, you'll play a key role in maintaining our quality systems, coordinating audits and supporting our production teams across a diverse range of products.

What you'll be doing

• Keeping us audit-ready – Coordinate preparation for external, customer and certification audits, ensuring our systems, documentation and site are ready.
• Maintaining quality systems – Keep our food safety procedures, specifications and records up to date and compliant.
• Getting hands-on – Conduct raw material and finished product inspections, sampling, swabbing and testing when required.
• Solving problems – Investigate quality issues, identify root causes and drive corrective actions to prevent them happening again.
• Knowing our products – Develop a strong understanding of our ingredients, processes and finished products across a diverse product range.
• Supporting the team – Work closely with production and warehouse teams to maintain food safety standards and improve quality performance.
• Driving improvement – Identify opportunities to strengthen our processes, reduce risks and make things work better.

What we're looking for

• We're after someone who is practical, organised and comfortable rolling up their sleeves.
• Experience in quality assurance or food safety within food manufacturing.
• A solid understanding of food safety systems, HACCP and audit requirements.
• Experience preparing for and coordinating external audits.
• Confidence managing non-conformances, investigations and corrective actions.
• Hands-on experience with sampling, testing, inspections and quality control activities.
• The ability to manage competing priorities in a busy manufacturing environment.
• A qualification in Food Science, Food Technology or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Most importantly, you'll be someone who can work with people across the business, communicate clearly and take ownership of getting things done.

Why join Sara Lee?

• An iconic Australian brand – Be part of a business that's been making delicious desserts on the Central Coast since 1971.
• Variety in your day – From production floor investigations to audit preparation, no two days are quite the same.
• Make a real impact – Play an important role in maintaining and improving the quality of products enjoyed across Australia.
• A supportive team – Work alongside experienced people who know our products and take pride in what we make.
• Central Coast location – Work locally at our Lisarow manufacturing site.

If you're passionate about food quality, enjoy solving problems and aren't afraid to get your hands a little floury, we'd love to hear from you.