Description
Summary
The Sr Food Safety & Quality (FSQ) Specialist is responsible for leading, executing, verifying, and continuously improving food safety, quality, animal welfare, biosecurity, and regulatory compliance programs across shell egg grading/packing and liquid egg breaking operations. The Sr FSQ Specialist serves as a key on-site resource to ensure compliance with company standards, customer requirements, animal welfare, biosecurity, USDA, FDA, and SQF.
Key Responsibilities:
Food Safety & Regulatory Compliance
Verify compliance with company standards, customer requirements, GMPs, HACCP plans, Preventive Controls, SSOPs, USDA, FDA (including Egg Safety Rule), and state regulations.
Support implementation and maintenance of HACCP, SQF and prerequisite programs.
Interface with USDA inspection personnel as needed.
Identify out-of-compliance situations, initiate corrective actions, and verify completion and effectiveness.
Support traceability exercises, mock recalls, and crisis response activities.
Lead regulatory inspections and third-party audits in the absence of the FSQ Manager.
Prepare audit readiness plans and coordinate pre-audit gap assessments.
Draft and submit regulatory responses (NRs, corrective actions).
Shell Egg & Liquid Egg Processing Oversight
Perform routine verification activities in shell egg grading and/or packing operations including cooler checks, sanitation verification, label verification, and defect monitoring.
Conduct oversight and weekly verification within liquid egg breaking and pasteurization processes including CCP monitoring, process verification and finished product release activities.
Perform operational sanitation inspections and operational GMP audits.
Review and audit records for accuracy and completeness.
Laboratory, Testing & Environmental Monitoring
Conduct physical, chemical, and microbiological testing.
Perform environmental monitoring including equipment swabbing depending on the process.
Support sampling programs for finished products, water, and environmental surfaces.
Maintain laboratory documentation, calibration records, and testing logs.
Analyze and trend microbiological and process data to identify risks and improvement opportunities.
Programs, Audits
Participate and lead audits of animal welfare, biosecurity, and feed safety/quality programs.
Own and maintain assigned food safety, quality, animal welfare, biosecurity, or feed safety programs.
Lead annual program reassessments and validations.
Verify compliance with animal welfare standards, handling practices, and documentation requirements.
Support biosecurity protocols including site access controls, sanitation barriers, and compliance monitoring.
Assist with auditing birds, housing conditions, egg handling practices, and feed supply programs as applicable.
Communicate animal welfare or biosecurity concerns to management promptly.
SQF & Audit Support
Support implementation and maintenance of SQF programs.
Participate in internal audits of processing, farms, feed mills, and support programs.
Prepare documentation and records for regulatory, third-party, and customer audits.
Assist with root cause analysis and corrective action documentation following audit findings.
Animal Welfare/Biosecurity
Lead internal animal welfare audits and coordinate third-party welfare audits.
Conduct risk assessments related to biosecurity breaches.
Partner with Veterinary Services on disease prevention strategy verification.
Training & Cross-Functional Collaboration
Train and reinforce food safety, quality, animal welfare, biosecurity, and personnel safety standards with production, sanitation, and live production teams as needed.
Communicate effectively with site management, corporate FSQ leadership, production, milling, and live operations teams.
Data Management & Reporting
Perform data entry, analysis, trending, and reporting of quality and food safety metrics.
Maintain graphs, reports, and documentation to support compliance and management review.
Compile and communicate findings to FSQ leadership and site management.
Perform statistical trend analysis of microbiological, environmental, animal welfare, and complaint data.
Conduct risk assessments for process changes, equipment modifications, and new product introductions.
Lead root cause investigations using formal methodologies (5-Why, Fishbone, CAPA).
Additional Responsibilities
Maintain inventory and order supplies for FSQ and laboratory programs.
Provide oversight of processing activities.
Perform other duties as assigned based on business needs.
Lead cross-functional food safety meetings.
Drive food safety culture initiatives at the site level.
Identify opportunities to reduce food safety risk while improving operational efficiency.
Support validation of sanitation chemicals and process controls.
Lead improvement projects tied to non-conformance reduction.
Assist Regional FSQ Manager with special projects as needed.
Qualifications
To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
Experience
Bachelor's degree in Quality, Food, or Biological Sciences or equivalent experience is preferred.
SQF (Required within 6 months of employment if not already held.).
HACCP (Required within 6 months of employment if not already held.).
Internal Audit (Required within 6 months of employment if not already held.).
Animal Welfare or biosecurity training a plus.
2-3 years of experience in egg processing or food production or similar experience.
Experience in Food Processing or Pharmaceuticals or related product safety and quality programs.
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
Must... For full info follow application link.
