Senior Quality Assurance Manager

Mid Valley Family Foods LLC

Turlock, CA

Estimated pay: Est. $30–$51/hr (market estimate, not employer-stated)

**Strategic Mandate & Scope**

· Site quality leadership: Own the site quality and food safety agenda across all juice, dairy, sanitation and laboratory activities and serve as the principal quality advisor to site and enterprise leadership.

· Integrated systems: Build and sustain one disciplined Quality Management System while maintaining the product- and process-specific controls required for juice and dairy operations.

· Risk governance: Anticipate, assess, and communicate product, process, regulatory, supplier, and customer risks; translate findings into clear priorities and durable corrective actions.

· Organizational capability: Develop a technically strong, accountable quality and laboratory organization with clear roles, succession depth, standardized work, and effective cross-functional partnerships.

· External confidence: Represent the facility with regulators, certification bodies, customers, suppliers, and other external stakeholders with credibility and sound judgment.

**Key Responsibilities**

Quality & Food Safety Governance

· Lead and continuously improve the site Quality Management System and food safety programs.

· Ensure compliance with FDA, state, customer, certification, and company requirements, including preventive controls, HACCP, cGMPs, sanitation, allergens, traceability, recall readiness, and product defense. Ensure manufacturing site's Food Safety Plans / HACCP Plan are appropriate, effective, and in compliance with the FDA FSMA Preventive Controls rule

· Maintain appropriate juice- and dairy-specific process controls, records, validations, verifications, and release criteria.

· Lead regulatory, customer, certification, and internal audits; maintain audit readiness and ensure timely, sustainable closure of findings.

· Lead management review of quality performance, systemic risks, recurring deviations, and corrective-action effectiveness.

· Provide sound strategic advice to the senior leadership team to ensure that all food safety risks are well understood, and there is a clear path to address any issues or brand risks in an effective and timely manner.

· Manage key quality and food safety indicators based on process control results for the MVFF systems.

· In partnership with operation teams build action plans to drive improvement quality metrics across the dairy and juice departments.

· Provide scientific expertise and serve as a subject matter expert for programs and activities related to food safety/microbiology, regulations, and quality systems at MVFF facilities

· Ensure manufacturing site's Food Defense Plans are appropriate, effective, and in compliance with FDA FSMA Intentional Adulteration rule

**Laboratory Leadership**

· Oversee microbiological, chemical, physical, sensory, and environmental laboratory programs.

· Ensure scientifically sound laboratory methods, sampling, specifications, equipment controls, proficiency, data integrity, and documentation.

· Ensure timely, accurate results and escalation of out-of-specification, out-of-trend, and atypical findings.

· Optimize laboratory capability, capacity, turnaround time, and cost without compromising method integrity or compliance.

· Use laboratory and process data to identify trends, detect emerging risk, and guide preventive action.

**Operational Quality & Continuous Improvement**

· Partner across functions to embed quality and food safety into daily execution.

· Govern acceptance criteria for materials, processes, products, packaging, sanitation, and environmental conditions.

· Lead risk-based disposition of nonconforming materials and products, including hold, release, rework, rejection, and escalation decisions.

· Direct investigations into consumer complaints, customer concerns, process deviations, and food safety events using disciplined root cause analysis.

· Ensure corrective and preventive actions address systemic causes, include clear ownership and due dates, and are verified for effectiveness.

· Support change control, capital projects, commissioning, new product introduction, supplier qualification, and process validation from a quality and food safety perspective.

**People & Culture Leadership**

· Lead, coach, and develop quality and laboratory leaders and team members through clear accountabilities, technical standards, performance expectations, succession plans, and role-specific development. Build a leadership bench capable of providing resilient coverage across juice, dairy, and laboratory operations.

· Provide cross-training and development assignments that expand technical capability and ensure dependable coverage across critical quality and laboratory responsibilities.

· Promote a culture in which employees identify risk early, escalate concerns promptly, and view food safety and quality as shared operating responsibilities.

· Communicate standards and performance with clarity; influence effectively across functions and levels, including in high-pressure or ambiguous