Sanitation Manager

Company Description: Instinct® is a rapidly growing, family-owned marketer and manufacturer of science-based 100% natural pet food for dogs and cats. Instinct® is the Raw Brand, with a mission to get more raw nutrition into every bowl of dogs and cats, for proven healthier and happier long lives. Our company mission is to Empower people to transform the lives of pets. We are committed to hiring and developing a team of passionate, performance-oriented professionals who live by our 4 values of championing raw, empowered to make a difference, collaborating as one team and striving for excellence through continuous learning and improvement. Our home office is located in St. Louis, Missouri with our Center of Excellence Raw Food kitchens in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Instinct® is part of the family-owned group, Agrolimen, who owns leading pet food and human food businesses in the US, China, Europe, and Africa.

Position Summary: The Sanitation Manager oversees the day-to-day operations surrounding the cleaning and sanitizing process for the facility (located in Lincoln, NE) while maintaining compliance with all company and regulatory requirements. This role ensures execution and improvement of the Sanitation Program, including SOP development, reassessment, training and identifying improvement opportunities. The Sanitation Manager helps create a safe working environment for personnel working in sanitation, maintain chemical safety procedures, MSDS’s and works with the chemical supplier to provide chemical handling training. This position will also play an active role in leveraging lab results and working with the Operations, Maintenance, and Sanitation teams to drive continuous improvement with our environmental and sanitation programs. This position will play a pivotal role in investigations, root cause analysis and preventative actions. As a member of the larger FS&Q team, the role will be involved in all aspects of quality and food safety including but not limited to audits, finished product and material evaluations, training, verification activities and other program support as needed.

Key Responsibilities:

• Build an engaged team and trust with other department personnel
• Work with engineering and production departments in the required preventative maintenance of equipment and facilities
• Performance Management: develop goals, development plans and drive results
• Task Management: plan, coordinate and follow up
• Develop programs, procedures and deploy training
• Safely setup and disassemble equipment
• Operate pallet jack, forklift, scan guns, equipment and troubleshoot
• Inspection, escalation and record keeping
• Maintains inventory of cleaning chemicals and cleaning suppliers, ensures proper concentrations and supplies
• Leverage sanitation vendors and other internal and external expertise to implement effective sanitation programs, including but not limited to, design and testing of new/improved sanitation methods, best practice sharing between plants, and identification of operational savings opportunities
• E-Systems: Microsoft Office Tools (Excel, Outlook), ERP (QAD), Electronic monitoring system (Redzone), Document Management (MasterControl)
• Other duties as assigned

Physical Requirements:

• Must be able to squat, kneel, stoop, bend and occasionally lift up to 50 pounds
• Must be willing to work in refrigerated temperatures (30F to 50F)

Personal Attributes:

• High Values: integrity (do the right thing), encourager, courteous, respectful and trustworthy
• Team player: work effectively across levels and departments, cover responsibilities of others, and work holidays/weekends as needed
• Highly driven: self-motivated, work with urgency, assertive and action driven
• Organized with the ability to prioritize and manage multiple things at once
• Effective verbal and written communicator
• Ability to deal with ambiguity and limited information
• Ability to remain calm in stressful and conflict situations
• Able to challenge the status quo, identify opportunities (process, data) and come up with creative solutions
• Champion and embrace change

Skills and Technical Expertise:

• Employee safety knowledge (Knowing what you can do to keep yourself and others free from work injuries)
• Employee well-being knowledge (Recognizing signs for help)
• Food safety and quality knowledge (Knowing what you can do to assure safety, high-quality product)
• Sanitation knowledge (methods, process, chemicals, safety)
• Product, processing and controls knowledge
• Continuous improvement champion (Lean Concepts, RCA)
• Financial knowledge (calculate and understand production metrics, variances and cost of goods sold)

Preferred Experience:

• Prior experience in Production
• 5 years prior food safety & quality leadership with increasing responsibility
• Bachelor’s degree in Food Science, Meat Science or equivalent

Travel Requirements:Same day travel within the area

Compensation and BenefitsHighly competitive compensation package includes health and dental insurance, life and AD&D insurance, flexible spending accounts, health savings account, short and long-term disability, paid time off, Purpose Days off for company partner volunteer opportunities, and 401k with company match.

Our Instinct is to CHAMPION Diversity

At Instinct, we are as passionate about our people as we are about the pets we call family. We are committed to inclusion, empowerment, and respect. We believe that just like our pets, what sets us apart unleashes our greatest strengths. We thrive on the ability to not only empower people to transform the lives of pets through raw nutrition, but also to empower each other to inspire a culture that celebrates our differences. Our unique approach to pet food is what makes us who we are as a company, and our individual identities are what makes us a successful, innovative, authentic team.

Job Type: Full-time

Work Location: Multiple locations