Project Lead, Food Safety and Quality Assurance

Overview

As the Project Lead – Food Safety and Quality Assurance (FSQA), you will assist development and implementation of the Chick-fil-A Supply ™ Corporate Food Safety Quality Assurance (“FSQA”) programs within the Safety, Quality and Compliance (“SQC”) function. In this role, you will have the opportunity to enhance, administer, and oversee standards, processes, training, and assessments that meet the needs of the organization and your colleagues – which in turn will help enable continued growth at an operation like no other in the food service industry.

About Chick-fil-A Supply

A wholly owned subsidiary of Chick-fil-A, Inc., Chick-fil-A Supply™ is a distribution service provider focused entirely on serving the unique needs of Chick-fil-A restaurants. 

Due to steady, year-over-year sales and volume growth, combined with the complexity in our Restaurants, Chick-fil-A Supply supports current and future Restaurant needs through distribution innovation that extends the Chick-fil-A culture of care to those it serves, as well as those it employs.

This subsidiary is in the early stages of development and is a dynamic, fast-paced work environment focused on launching this new service to Restaurants across the nation.

Responsibilities

To be successful in this role, you will assist in implementing Corporate FSQA programs, help cultivate a strong food safety culture, and drive compliance monitoring, recordkeeping, and verification activities.  As part of compliance activities, you will continuously improve FSQA compliance verification tools and training programs.  Other tasks may include collaborating with other subject matter leaders who require FSQA input on IT, operations, Transportation, or Vehicle Maintenance matters pertinent to FSQA.   You will team-up with the Principal Program Leader – FSQA to drive a safe work culture, evaluate, and mitigate food safety risks, lead FSQA training, analyze data to understand progress, and much more to ensure Chick-fil-A Supply facilities comply with all federal, state, and local laws and regulations. Regulatory compliance for FSQA includes but is not limited to: FDA, USDA, State departments of agriculture and/or public health, and DOT.

As the Project Lead – FSQA, you will intimately understand the needs of employees, customers, and the community, and will treat all parties with dignity and respect in difficult situations and maintain a positive, service-focused mindset.

In addition, a successful Project Lead – FSQA will:

• Assist Implementing and revising FSQA compliance management programs and systems for all CFA Supply facilities
• Assist with obtaining and renewal of applicable regulatory licenses at CFA Supply Facilities
• Verify that FSQA risks and hazards are identified, mitigated, and properly recorded
• Draft and update FSQA policies, job-aids, FSQA forms, and standard operational operating procedures (SOPs) with input from the Principal Program Lead – FSQA and other leadership
• Train and support operations leadership on FSQA policies/practices
• Support IT implementations acting as a key liaison from FSQA to IT in consultations and User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
• Drive continuous improvement for FSQA through the application of KPIs and by seeking feedback from key stakeholders

Support site-level FSQA activities, including:

• Implementation and maintenance of the third-party audit program
• Facilitate annual and other reviews of policies and procedures
• Corrective Action Preventive Action consultation
• Pre-operational inspections and new facility assessments
• Assist with preparing the facility for regulatory inspections
• Assist with annual FSQA internal assessments/audits
• Work cross-functionally (e.g., Operations, HR, Legal, IT) to ensure corporate policies effectively drive compliance with all laws, regulations and company policies and procedures
• Support employee and contractor engagement; collect and evaluate FSQA concerns
• Support company mission, values, and standards of ethics and integrity
• Implement the FSQA strategy for Chick-fil-A Supply 

• As the Compliance Manager – FSQA, you are also:

• A skilled communicator across all levels of an organization, with both teammates and vendors.

• A quick & versatile learner who is open to change; analyzes both successes and failures for clues to improvement; experiments to find solutions; enjoys the challenge of unfamiliar tasks; and quickly grasps the essence and underlying structure of anything

• A customer-focused relationship builder who can earn the trust and respect of internal and external customers and leverage their information to find ways to improve products and services

• Committed without compromise a safe workplace for colleagues

• Inspired to uphold Chick-fil-A values and act with integrity

• A driver of results who can be counted on to not only meet but exceed goals and push others to do the same

• A problem solver who can identify hidden problems, looks beyond the obvious and doesn't stop at the first answer

• A servant leader who puts others before themselves, corrects mistakes with authenticity and respects all viewpoints

Minimum Qualifications

To be successful in this role, you must have:

• Experience in food safety and quality assurance programs, preferably in food distribution and manufacturing
• Functional knowledge of FDA, USDA, and state regulations (e.g., GDA)Functional knowledge and experience in food distribution and/or manufacturing:
• Standards, processes, systems, and contingencies related to food safety, food defense, GMPs, cleaning/sanitation, and HACCP
• Compliance and risk performance metrics, measurement, and enforcement

Employee training programs

• Experience with food safety management systems and third-party audit schemes such as GFSI and ISO (e.g., SQF, BRC, FSSC 22000, IFS, PrimusGFS)
• Experienced in development, implementation, and maintenance of effective food safety and quality assurance programs and measurement tools
• Working knowledge of food safety leading practices in supply chain, risk management, emergency planning and data analytics (e.g., behavior-based safety, food safety risk management loss prevention methods, contractor management practices)
• Effective communication skills for advising leadership and team members about food safety
• Effective systems and presentation skills for leading trainings
• Ability lead FSQA consultation to IT on new tools, and/or procedures to verify food safety standards are achieved
• Experience in incident investigation, as well as knowledge of auditing and monitoring procedures

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working with Food Safety Management Systems (FSMS)
• Experience with Quality Management Systems (QMS)
• Highly skilled in Compliance Monitoring, Program Maintenance, and IT consultation (e.g., UAT)
• Certifications (at least one of the following): Preventive Controls Qualified Individual (PCQI), HACCP, IFT Certified Food Scientist, NEHA Registered Environmental Health Specialist, American Society for Quality Certified HACCP Auditor, SQF Practitioner
• Have at least 3 years in food distribution operations 

Minimum Years of Experience

Travel Requirements

Required Level of Education