Director of Food Safety and Quality Assurance

Kinder’s is seeking an experienced and results-driven Director of Food Safety and Quality Assurance who combines strategic leadership with a hands-on approach to quality and food safety. This role is perfect for a leader who thrives in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment and can drive both operational excellence and long-term innovation while maintaining the highest quality and food safety standards.

We are a fast-growing company working hard to bring amazing flavor solutions that are as exciting and delicious as they are simple to use to our consumers whether they are experienced cooks or first-timers in the kitchen. We are obsessed with quality and are 100% committed to being the most innovative company in any market we serve. Our mission is to bring awesome flavor to consumers whenever and wherever they are looking for it (seasonings, sauces, gravy, marinades, or anything else we can come up with). We have experienced tremendous growth over the last 5 years, but we think we are just getting started. We love our consumers and are fired up to be part of their flavor journey. And we need more great folks to help us continue to raise the bar for what they think is even possible in their own kitchens.

Today, we have over 100 products sold nationwide at retailers including Costco, Walmart, Sam’s Club, Whole Foods, Sprouts, Kroger, Safeway and many more. While we have been around for over 75 years, we have experienced explosive growth in the last 5 years and are now a top 5 brand in the U.S. in multiple flavor categories including seasoning blends, BBQ sauce, and wing sauce. To keep our momentum rolling, we need more passionate flavor advocates and builders to come and join our team and help us reach every kitchen across the U.S. and maybe even the world.

How you'll have an impact at Kinder’s: The Director of Food Safety and Quality Assurance will be responsible for quality assurance for our high-growth flavor brand and will play a critical role in both defining and driving compliance with our high quality standards. You will partner with Kinder’s leaders and cross-functional teams to build an organization and processes that ensure Kinder’s delivers high quality and amazing tasting products consistently while adhering to industry best practices for food safety and quality assurance.

What are the Key Responsibilities of this Role:

Quality Assurance Strategy and Execution

• Build, develop, and inspire a high-performing Corporate Quality Assurance team, ensuring they have the resources, processes, and leadership to support Kinder’s growth. Foster a culture of continuous improvement, accountability, and collaboration across teams and with manufacturing partners.
• Oversee quality assurance team including:
  1. Quality Management
  2. Quality Standards
  3. Regulatory & Documentation

Quality/Food Safety Procedures

• Evaluate and optimize existing company food safety and quality processes to ensure they are proactive, scalable, and aligned with industry best practices. Implement data-driven decision-making frameworks to track and improve performance.
• Optimize programs to manage and optimize food safety and quality.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams and assist Kinder’s Director of Quality Manufacturing to drive clear understanding of quality standards and establish robust capabilities to drive compliance with the goal of consistent quality at our manufacturing partners.
• Assist continuous improvement programs to ensure consistent elevation of quality standards.

Testing Program

• Evaluate and optimize company testing procedures and develop robust, balanced programs to ensure compliance with key standards.
• Track testing data and maintain database of key results including exceptions and deviations.

Process Development

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams including Project Management, Product Development, Contract Manufacturing and Kinder’s Director Quality-Manufacturing to evaluate process development opportunities to drive consistency across the manufacturing network.

Retain Management

• Collect and maintain database to track retains from manufacturing partners.

• Optimize procedures to evaluate retains, ensure compliance with company gold standards.

Consumer Quality Support

• Track, develop and maintain database of consumer feedback or other quality opportunities.
• Identify trends in consumer issues and where applicable, develop corrective action plans for vendor partners or work with internal product development team to develop reformulation strategies.
• Support customer service team in answering consumer questions related to quality and support issue resolution if applicable.

Crisis Response

• Lead Kinder’s Crisis Response Strategy for food safety and quality incidents, ensuring rapid and decisive action to protect consumers, partners, and the brand. Develop scenario-based training and proactive risk assessments to improve response effectiveness and reduce business risk.

Raw Material and Packaging Vendor Management; Audit / Compliance

• Refine company audit process and documentation and develop clear, effective communication strategy with key suppliers.
• Collaborate with operations and PD teams regarding the approval process of new contract manufacturing partners.
• Assist in investigations, identify quality issues, and assist corrective and preventative actions.
• Refine and optimize company recall procedures.
• Develop raw material, packaging vendor business reviews to highlight quality trends and key areas for improvement.

Regulatory / Documentation

• Develop “best in class” regulatory methodology and systems ensuring compliance for all packaging materials and formulations with applicable third parties and agencies.
• Ensure that all labels and documentation are compliant with all regulatory requirements and are accurate based on product formulations, ingredients etc.
• Develop and implement “best in class” documentation/specification/routing management systems for “raw materials”, “packaging materials”, “finished goods” and “formulations”.
• Optimize internal graphic routing methodology.
• Optimize finished goods specifications providing critical information to key internal and external stakeholders to ensure that there is one “source of truth” within the organization.
• Monitor regulatory activities and plant compliance with regulatory standards and act as a liaison for all regulatory compliance within Kinder’s.
• Collaborate with product development leadership to develop robust material specifications and ensure the maintenance of a repository of all critical documentations associated with raw and packaging materials.
• Work with PD to catalog key ingredient information and develop testing and other compliance procedures to ensure raw materials and finished goods meet company standards (including organic, non-GMO, and all ingredient claims)

Cross-Functional Partnership

• Lead internal cross-functional quality team to ensure quality standards are met while simultaneously supporting and achieving aggressive commercialization timelines for new items.
• Drive clear cross-functional understanding of key quality issues / drivers and help team make intentional, active trade-offs to balance quality, brand, and commercial objectives.
• Identify sources of potential food safety risk and drive clear organizational understanding and alignment on how to achieve “zero-tolerance” goals.
• Identify key sources of business risk from quality issues (e.g. variance in appearance, flavor profile, packaging look / feel) and highlight trade-offs to senior management

What You Bring to the Table:

Education / Experience:

• Bachelor’s Degree required. Strong preference for degree in food science, chemistry, microbiology.
• 15 years relevant work experience in QA/FS in CPG Food industry.
• Advanced level of quality assurance/food safety technical skills including demonstrated knowledge of microbiology, allergen management, FDA labeling, HACCP, FSMA and FDA food regulations.
• Experience being part of an organization driving rapid innovation, product launches and product development is a strong plus.
• Experience with food manufacturing audit procedures strongly preferred.
• Track record of agile creative thinking, risk mitigation processes, generation of product standards, specifications, processes and working with internal and external partners (i.e. contract manufacturers, raw and packaging suppliers).
• Collaborative business partner with a track record of helping internal and external stakeholders identify win-win solutions and driving alignment around best course of action and accountability for delivering committed outcomes.
• A proven strategic and results-driven leader who thrives in an innovation-led, high-growth environment. Ability to translate technical food safety expertise into clear, actionable strategies that drive business results.
• Strong analytical & quantitative skills with ability to collect and use data to drive more effective decision-making and problem solving.
• Strong project management skills and understanding of new product development process from ideation to execution.

Personal Characteristics:

• Business builder who owns and drives results and motivation, teambuilding, collaboration.
• Strong team player mindset and collaborator who can be both a team leader and player with very strong interpersonal skills.
• Growth mindset with an excitement to learn and teach.
• Thrive in a dynamic, lean, and agile environment with proven record of completing projects on time in full through excellent cross functional team management, leadership, communication and influence.
• A self-starter and decisive leader who is not afraid to make tough calls, challenge assumptions, and drive alignment across cross-functional teams. Takes accountability for results and embraces Kinder’s fast-moving, high-impact culture.
• Excited to be part of a fast-moving team with the ability to be a leader, team member and a follower
  Enjoys making decisions & finding ways to say ‘yes’ as often as possible to impactful priorities.
• Strong ability to rigorously prioritize key issues based on business risk and needs of organization.

Things About the Way We Work:

• No two days here are the same.
• We try to be good team members and good communicators, but we don’t live by hierarchy and structure – everyone is a difference maker here.
• We make a lot of decisions in the face of incomplete information – our team embraces ambiguity and tries to make good decisions fast rather than great decisions slow.
• We encourage leaders to take smart, calculated risks that balance innovation with business impact. We operate with a bias toward action and a results-driven mindset, ensuring we make decisions fast and adapt as needed. Our leaders empower their teams and foster a collaborative, transparent environment.
• We believe in growing our skills and becoming a better company with more managerial expertise, but we are an entrepreneurial company at heart.
• We aren’t trying to be average – we want to do exceptional things and we are willing to work hard to achieve them.

Location & Travel:

The position will be based out of our 20,000 sq. foot office in Walnut Creek, CA. We strongly believe in the power of culture and community and have a hybrid work structure with 4 days in the office on a weekly basis to encourage collaboration and personal connections that will allow us to better serve our customers and consumer and to have more fun. We have 1 flex day per week with employees having the opportunity to choose to be either in the office or to work from home based on what makes most sense for them.

Some travel will be required for this role on a periodic basis. Typical travel includes visiting our contract manufacturers and to an ingredient or packaging supplier.

Salary : $160,000 - $215,000