Job Title: Quality Hygienist

Job Description

As a Quality Hygienist, you will play a crucial role in protecting the safety and quality of our product. You will be responsible for maintaining pre-requisite components of the Food Safety Management System by establishing, maintaining, and coaching the building blocks of hygiene and food safety concepts in the manufacturing facility. Your expertise in hygiene and sanitation will be essential to maintaining the highest standards for our environment and products. You will also be responsible for identifying and addressing potential food safety risks and ensuring that our manufacturing processes adhere to best practices.

Responsibilities

• Define, implement and verify the effectiveness of the Pre-requisite Programs (PRP's) related to Hygiene, including hygienic zoning, risk management, pest control, cleaning validation and verification, pathogen monitoring, foreign body prevention, hygiene and housekeeping.
• Contribute to skills development of quality and operations personnel across the organization.
• Define and update the specific quality and sanitation standard operating procedures, instructions and tools required to operate in a facility.
• Support operations and maintenance in ensuring GMP standards are adhered to.
• Support the new product or process development through the risk assessment of new raw materials and processes.
• Develop audit routines to ensure effectiveness of sanitation program.
• Support activities to achieve compliance with internal requirements and other applicable instructions and standards.
• Own and deliver training related to hygiene, sanitation, and housekeeping as required.
• Lead and support the development and implementation of Sanitation Standard Operation Procedures.
• Support and recommend improvements to the master cleaning and master sanitation registers.
• Support facility readiness for internal and external audits.
• Perform troubleshooting and corrective action follow-up of non-conformities.
• Comprehend and support plant protocols and programs, as well as facility systems, including informational/operational/management systems such as Acadia and QMS.
• Responsible for development and execution of environmental monitoring program.
• Support sample collection and analysis at specified stages in the production process for evaluating compliance to specification.
• Responsible for performing maintenance hygiene verification inspections.
• Responsible for CIP verification, pre-operational inspections, collecting pre-op cleaning verification swabs and reporting any concerns or deviations.
• Other duties may be assigned.

Essential Skills

• Experience in environmental monitoring, microbiology, swabbing, food safety, and quality standards.
• Bachelor’s degree in microbiology, biology, chemistry or a comparable program, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Experience successfully implementing sanitation, quality, or food safety programs by leading change or participating in project teams or improvement projects.
• Demonstrated competence in hygiene and quality management.
• Experience working in microbiology or quality role in a food manufacturing environment.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Proficiency in MS Office.
• Good writing, analytical, presentation, and critical thinking skills.
• Detail-oriented, with strong decision-making ability.
• Ability to keep accurate records.

Work Environment

This position is based in a manufacturing environment. The role requires adherence to strict hygiene and sanitation standards. You will work with various informational and operational management systems such as Acadia and QMS. The facility operates under Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) standards, and readiness for internal and external audits is essential. The dress code includes wearing appropriate protective gear to maintain food safety and hygiene standards.