Multisite Dairy Quality Leader (Travel‑Heavy)

Land O'Lakes Inc; United States; On-site; USD 108,000 - 162,000; Full time

Job summary

Land O’Lakes, Inc. is seeking an Operations Quality Manager to oversee quality programs across multiple dairy sites in Arden Hills, MN. The role partners with R&D, Regulatory, and Operations to sustain a culture of quality and food safety and to drive continuous improvement.

The position requires about 50% travel and leadership of plant quality teams, CAPA investigations, and collaboration with cross-functional leaders on KPIs and audits.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Food Science, Dairy Science, Chemistry, Microbiology or related discipline.
• 7 years of experience in production, quality assurance, or sanitation in the food or pharmaceutical industry.
• 5 years of progressive leadership in plant quality or corporate quality roles.
• Extensive experience in HACCP, GFSI certification, quality assurance standards, food laboratory testing, and SPC techniques, and sanitation.
• PCQI certified or ability to become certified
• LEAN/Six Sigma certification and/or experience preferred
• Experience managing quality for multiple sites is preferred
• Experience in dairy processes and sanitation is highly preferred

Responsibilities

• Guide plants in monitoring and analyzing product safety and quality data, including customer complaints and feedback, product testing results, ingredient issues, audit results, and product and processing parameters.
• Guide plants to complete root cause investigations and CAPA plans for product safety and quality issues, audit findings, and customer complaints. Verify closure of CAPAs.
• Guide plant on product disposition.
• Report on quality and food safety metrics and communicate with cross functional leaders on quality issues/events and customer concerns.
• Assist with hiring and onboarding new quality staff and plant quality training.
• Assist with customer audits, 3rd party audits and regulatory inspections as needed.
• Coach, mentor, and direct work of plant quality teams at dairy manufacturing sites.
• Engage corporate and external technical experts to partner with site Quality Assurance teams to ensure the robust QMS programs are developed and implemented.
• Work with cross functional teams to manage product specifications, ingredient and supplier issues, design and commercialization of new products and manufacturing processes. Support line trials and first production runs as needed.

Skills

HACCP

GFSI

SPC

Quality standards

Food lab testing

Sanitation

PCQI

LEAN/Six Sigma

Education

Bachelor's degree in Food Science/Dairy Science/Chemistry/Microbiology

Job description

Land O’Lakes, Inc. is seeking an Operations Quality Manager to oversee quality programs across multiple dairy sites in Arden Hills, MN. The role partners with R&D, Regulatory, and Operations to sustain a culture of quality and food safety and to drive continuous improvement.

The position requires about 50% travel and leadership of plant quality teams, CAPA investigations, and collaboration with cross-functional leaders on KPIs and audits.