Quality Assurance Business Arm Manager

Description

Job Summary

The QA Business Arm Manager owns food safety, quality assurance, and regulatory compliance for an assigned GBC Food Services business arm across franchise, retail, warehouse, supplier, and field operations. The Manager converts corporate QA standards into practical programs, partners with Operations, Training, Merchandising, R&D, Supply Chain, franchisees, and retailers, and ensures effective execution of HACCP, sanitation, labeling, traceability, cold-chain, and customer requirements. Success is measured through audit readiness, timely risk escalation and corrective-action closure, safe openings and launches, effective incident response, reliable reporting, and continuous improvement.

Supervisory Responsibilities

• Supervise assigned QA specialists, auditors, inspectors, or coordinators; set priorities, coverage plans, performance standards, and development goals.
• Provide functional QA direction and accountability to field leaders, National Training Specialists, Regional Managers, and other business-arm partners who execute food safety programs.
• Recruit, onboard, coach, and evaluate direct reports; build technical capability, consistent decision-making, and succession readiness.
• Partner with Human Resources and leadership on recognition, performance improvement, discipline, and separation decisions in accordance with company policy.

Primary Duties & Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain business-arm QA and food safety programs aligned with corporate policies, customer requirements, HACCP, FSMA, FDA, USDA/FSIS, seafood requirements, and state and local regulations, as applicable.
• Own assigned HACCP plans, preventive controls, SOPs, franchise manuals, sanitation, allergen controls, labeling, traceability, product specifications, shelf-life, and cold-chain requirements; review at least annually and whenever requirements change.
• Maintain a risk-based audit and field-assessment plan; lead internal audits, regulatory inspections, customer reviews, third-party audits, and timely written responses.
• Monitor SafetyCulture, Steritech, customer systems, and internal dashboards for critical findings, repeat violations, corrective-action aging, permits, training, temperature compliance, complaints, and approved KPIs.
• Contain and escalate critical food safety risks immediately; lead root-cause analysis, corrective and preventive actions, owner and due-date assignment, and verification of sustained closure.
• Own QA readiness for new openings, transfers, conversions, pilots, and launches by confirming permits, calibration, documentation, training, sanitation, and operating controls before go-live.
• Partner with Training and Operations to deliver practical food safety training and verify competency, certification, and field execution for franchisees, managers, trainers, and associates.
• Lead response to product complaints, illness allegations, allergen events, foreign material, regulatory actions, withdrawals, and recalls; maintain crisis procedures and support traceability and mock-recall exercises.
• Review and approve, from a QA perspective, labels, specifications, recipes, packaging, process changes, substitutions, shelf-life studies, and written programs before implementation.
• Partner with Supply Chain and Procurement to qualify and monitor suppliers, warehouses, and distribution practices through evaluations, documentation, cold-chain controls, risk assessments, and audits.
• Analyze audit, complaint, incident, and operating data to prioritize risk, prevent repeat nonconformities, and recommend scalable improvements without compromising quality or compliance.
• Maintain audit-ready records and compliance calendars for permits, licenses, certifications, training, audits, corrective actions, supplier documents, and regulatory commitments.
• Provide concise weekly and monthly updates, escalate material risks promptly, manage assigned resources and vendors, and maintain effective relationships with internal and external partners.

Travel & Schedule

• Travel: Up to 60-70% domestic travel by air and ground is required for stores, kiosks, warehouses, suppliers, audits, openings, and business reviews. Occasional international and short-notice travel may be required.
• Schedule: Full-time, Monday-Friday, on-site when not traveling, with flexibility for early mornings, evenings, weekends, holidays, and urgent food safety or recall response.

Qualifications:

•  Food Safety & Regulatory Expertise: Strong knowledge of HACCP, FSMA, FDA, USDA/FSIS, Seafood HACCP, local health codes, sanitat