QA Manager S. Sisto

Barry Callebaut Manufacturing Iberica SA.; Perugia; Hybrid; EUR 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Permanent contract

Diversity & Inclusion

Job summary

Barry Callebaut is seeking a Site Quality Manager in Italy to plan, implement and manage the Quality Assurance Program in alignment with GFSI and customer requirements. Lead a team, drive CAPA actions, and ensure ongoing compliance with Barry Callebaut policies and site standards.

The role focuses on safety, food safety, and quality, coordinating with operations, R&D, and sales to support product transfers and continuous improvement across the plant.

Qualifications

• Master’s degree or equivalent in a relevant field
• Minimum 8 years’ experience in food safety and QA
• Formal HACCP training and knowledge of GFSI standards (FSSC22000/BRC)
• Certification in a quality management system such as ASQ preferred
• Minimum local language fluency plus English (B2)

Responsibilities

• Develop and lead the quality, food safety and sanitation programs at the site
• Manage audits, visits and inspections by customers, certification bodies and regulators
• Oversee CAPA actions from audits and daily management system
• Lead food safety plans and ensure proper implementation and compliance
• Drive site quality improvements and coordinate with operations, R&D and sales

Skills

Strong knowledge of food safety

People management

Lean/ TPM knowledge

Education

Master’s degree in chemistry, biology, microbiology or food science

Tools

MS Office Suite

SAP Systems

Job description

At Barry Callebaut, we are on a journey to transform the cocoa and chocolate industry. As the world’s leading manufacturer of high-quality chocolate and cocoa products, our actions truly shape the future of our industry. We are a business-to-business company, serving the entire food sector, from the cocoa bean to the finest chocolate product. We are a company with a purpose, we believe in doing well by doing good and reinvesting in the communities we operate. We have a long-standing commitment to sustainability and our goal is to shape a sustainable cocoa and chocolate future.We are headquartered in Zurich, and have more than 12,000 passionate Employees working in more than 40 countries worldwide.We are very proud of who we are and what we do. And of course, we are always looking for talented people to help us have a positive impact on our industry and beyond!

The Site Quality Manager is responsible to plan, implement and manage the Quality Assurance Program to ensure compliance to BC quality management system (QMS), Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) standard requirements and all customer and local regulatory requirements.

Site Quality Manager contributes to and nurtures a culture of “Safety, Food safety first and Quality Always” mindset across all teams and leaders in the site, in line with the Barry Callebaut ‘GoForZero’ objective (0 accidents, 0 defects, 0 delays, 0 environmental impact and a 0-loss mindset). The Site Quality Manager has the responsibility to act and speak up when deviations cannot be solved locally (example: supplier quality) The Quality Manager has the drive to constantly seek improvements through lean principles and people capabilities development, towards achieving best in class performance. Going beyond their role to also challenge the business to support bringing the plant to highest performance (e.g. SKU complexity, raw material supplier performance etc.).

MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES & SCOPE

The Quality manager is accountable to ensure compliance, alignment and adequacy of the policies and procedures for Quality, Food Safety and Sanitation within the plant. Additionally, they will ensure requirements are met and exceeded for Regulatory standards, Barry Callebaut Policies, GFSI and customer requirements.

• Develop their team and build capability within the plant to ensure high performance across all Quality, Food Safety and Hygiene metrics.
• Manage audits, visits and inspections from Customers, Certification bodies, Regulatory agencies or corporate oversite at the plant.
• Oversee the corrective and preventative (CAPA) actions coming from internal or external audits, and the plant daily management system
• Provide support to resolve customer complaints, complete RCA cycles and ensure CAPA efficiency
• Lead food safety, ensure the food safety plan is properly implemented and complied with
• Work closely with the operations team, R&D and sales to support effective and efficient new product or site to site product transfers

• Establish and document standards for sanitation procedures while ensuring compliance
• Oversee local laboratory equipment and quality control material supply inventories
• Ensure appropriate, timely decisions on destination response for possible non-conformities or Quality/Food Safety issues
• Drive corrective actions for out of spec materials, performing RCA to identify the source and ensure no recurrence
• Establish a balanced scorecard with leading and lagging indicators to provide visibility of plant quality performance at all org levels
• Lead the issue management team (integrate, train and coordinate) according to Global guidelines
• Ensure the plant Document Management System (DMS) is used effectively and maintained with up-to-date control documents
• Ensure product labels are regularly reviewed and approved for quality and compliance
• Ensure product batches are released to customers only once operations, QC and compliance reviews are completed
• Continuously develop a quality improvement plan as part of site masterplan to bring the plant to highest performance
• Identify food safety investments and CAPEX requirements to comply with standards and improve food safety performance
• Lead food defense and vulnerability assessments and develop plans for the site
• Manage QA team planning: budget and capex (short, medium and long term)

EDUCATION, LANGUAGE, SKILLS & QUALIFICATIONS

• Master’s degree in chemistry, Biology, Microbiology or Food Science or equivalent (or engineering degree with 7 plus years in food quality assurance)
• Minimum 8years’ experience in food safety, including formal HACCP training, pathogen environmental monitoring and testing
• Formal training in FSSC22000 or BRC
• Certification in a quality management system such as ASQ preferred
• Minimum local language fluency plus English (B2)
• Knowledgeable in MS Office Suite, SAP Systems and other applications used in manufacturing e.g. scheduling, CMMS, MES, etc.

CANDIDATE PROFILE

• Strong knowledge of food safety systems
• Proven people management skills
• Understanding of processing and processing technologies – food or pharma industry preferred
• Understanding of laboratory operations and testing procedures
• Knowledge of plant and manufacturing functional disciplines
• Practical knowledge of Lean Manufacturing, TPM or similar operating systems
• Experience of Project Management and associated tools and systems
• Change Manager seeking Continuous improvement through people capabilities development
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills
• Immersed in latest quality and food safety regulations
• Can prove strong focus on procedures (standardizing)
• Good problem-solving abilities with attention to detail
• Ability to work with data and apply statistical quality control tools
• Acts as a servant Leader
• Customer focused
• Excellent communication (written and verbal) skills both upward and downward
• Works well under pressure, enabling his/her/their team to thrive under all circumstances
• Calm in a crisis with composure to make informed and effective decisions
• Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities
• Self-starter and results driven mind set and discipline to sustain results
• Multitasking and time-management skills
• Change manager seeking continuous improvement through people capability development

What do we offer?

Permanent Contract

At Barry Callebaut, we are committed to Diversity & Inclusion. United by our strong values, we thrive on the diversity of who we are, where we come from, what we’ve experienced and how we think. We are committed to nurturing an inclusive environment where people can truly be themselves, grow to their full potential and feel they belong.