VP, Food Safety & Quality Assurance

Who We Are 

We’re Chomps, the fastest-growing snack brand in the U.S. and we’re reimagining snacking. Our meat snacks are made using high-quality proteins, no sugar, and real ingredients – because we believe snacking should be simple, delicious, and convenient. Chomps can be found in over 30,000 stores nationwide with a strong e-commerce presence. Our mission is to inspire, educate, and fuel our community with accessible, real food that doesn’t compromise on taste. 

Traits of a Chompian 

If you’ve been called scrappy, resourceful, and persistent, then you might just be a Chompian. You’re a team player who’s self-motivated and action-oriented. You’re committed to delivering efficiency and accuracy, and you happen to be great at proactive cross-functional communication. You’re a critical thinker and a natural problem solver who enjoys details, research, and data. You take initiative and complete ownership of everything you do, and you’ll go the extra mile for your team, consumers, and audience. You’re hungry to learn with a passion to grow and improve every day. You also take a keen interest in health, fitness, and nutrition. Sound like you? Then we want to meat you.

What You Will Do

As the VP, Food Safety & Quality Assurance, you will be responsible for leading the strategic direction, development, implementation, and management of food safety and quality assurance programs. This role will ensure that Chomps' products meet all regulatory requirements and industry standards while maintaining the highest level of quality and safety. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in food safety, quality control, and regulatory compliance within the food industry, with a proven track record of leadership in a large-scale organization.

Responsibilities

• Develop and implement strategic plans over a 3+ year road-map for the food safety and quality assurance program, aligning with the company's growth to a billion-dollar brand.
• Lead, mentor, and manage the food safety and quality assurance team (currently nine), ensuring continuous development and alignment with company goals.
• Ensure strict compliance with GMP, HACCP, and third-party certification regulations and guidelines with our external partners including raw material suppliers, frozen storage/tempering facilities, co-manufacturers, repackers, 3PL fulfillment.
• Ensure strict compliance with USDA regulations, including overseeing recall procedures and facilitating USDA interactions during food safety incidents.
• Monitor changes in food safety regulations and implement necessary updates to company policies and procedures.
• Oversee the development and maintenance of quality control processes, including product testing, inspection, and validation.
• Implement and manage quality improvement initiatives to enhance product consistency and consumer satisfaction.
• Ensure investigations into food safety incidents and quality issues are completed in a timely manner, including root cause analysis and corrective action plans.
• Prepare and present reports on food safety and quality performance to senior leadership and cross-functional teams.
• Lead the team in the growth and development of processes, procedures, team, and systems to support the growing FSQA needs of the organization.
• Foster a culture of food safety and quality throughout the organization.
• Collaborate with other departments to ensure food safety and quality standards are integrated into all aspects of the business. This role will partner with several functions on a regular basis, e.g. Manufacturing, R&D, Engineering, Procurement, Commercialization, Productivity, Logistics, Finance, and Consumer Experience.
• Demonstrate an ability to be a functional FSQA senior leader, but also a broader business leader within Chomps by also serving as a leader within the broader Operations team to also enable overall Operations and Company/Brand success.
• Travel requirements: up to 40% of the time.

Who You Are

• Bachelor's degree in Food Science, Chemistry, Microbiology, or a related field with a minimum of 15 years of experience.
• Prior industry experience with USDA is required, experience with FDA is a plus.
• Previous experience with regulatory audits, USDA, and SQF is required.
• Experience working in a CoMan/third-party model is required to ultimately support our Chomps Brand, but also to work as strategic partners