All of us at Rä Foods LLC know food. We’ve built our careers, our businesses, our lives, around food and food-related technologies. We have a passion for food that drives us to create new and better ways of growing, packaging, and delivering wholesome foods for today’s consumer. We know how to find and select the right seeds; how to grow, harvest, process, package, and distribute. We know product innovation, food safety, and product testing. We are immersed in all elements of food production from farm-to-fork.
We have an immediate opening for a Food Safety and R&D Manager to join our team in Sacramento, CA.
The Food Safety and R&D Manager is a key member of the management team reporting directly to the General Manager and has two major areas of responsibility.
Provide leadership, direction, and day-to-day support to the organization by managing the processes that are critical to food safety and delivering unsurpassed quality and sanitation to the Rä Foods businesses. This involves providing leadership, overall management, measurement, analysis, feedback, and business-related reports on raw, intermediate, and finished product quality. In addition, this position will be accountable for the overall facility compliance to FDA regulations and strategic food safety and quality leadership, directly integrating it into the business to drive revenue and growth.
We are in the early stages of commercializing fresh living tiny plants based on proprietary (patented) technology and the incumbent will be responsible for research and development. The job includes the assessment of new seed varieties, improvements to the current growing process and manufacturing process, and improvements in packaging design. Incumbent will be expected to be capable of efficiently designing, planning, coordinating, and executing experiments from bench-top through scale-up. Incumbent will be accountable for all technical deliverables in a project and all documentation of final growing and process parameters, while ensuring finished product compliance with nutrition, regulatory and food safety requirements. As a member of the senior management team, the incumbent will be expected to lead the implementation of projects and independently troubleshoot and resolve various project challenges.
- Experience and strong working knowledge of FDA regulations and program requirements
- Ability to effectively communicate and develop positive working relationships with FDA and other regulatory inspectors
- Experience in the processing of foods (lab and quality assurance management)
- Supervisory experience, building teams and succession planning
- Strong knowledge of statistics, including ANOVA, SPC and other quality tools
- Proven analytical skills resulting in decision making that protects the customer, consumer, and the brand
- Strong verbal and written communication skills, ability to effectively write reports and customer facing communications
- Demonstrated ability to develop people, teams, and oneself through innovative means
- Demonstrated ability to both lead a team and work in a matrix organization
- Ability to influence at all levels of the organization across all functions
- Ability to prioritize duties in a changing environment to meet business objectives
- Effective presentation and public speaking skills
- Experience in Environmental Monitoring and pathogen testing protocols
- Strong computer skills and proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
- Minimal travel is expected for this position
- Bilingual in Spanish is a plus
- Bachelor's degree in a Biological Science, Food Science, Horticulture, Chemical Engineering, Food Engineering or related field, with research experience.
- Master’s degree a plus
- Minimum of 3 years’ experience supervising or managing in a FDA or USDA regulated food manufacturing facility
- Fresh produce related experience is preferred
- HACCP Certified
- Experience with Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA)- PCQI Certification
- Certification in Quality disciplines (i.e. ASQ CQE, CQA, FSSC 22000, BRC, SQF etc.) preferred
