Assistant Quality Manager (QA/QC)

Function

As a Junior Quality Manager, you will work closely with the current Quality Manager and Plant Management. You are not someone who simply works behind a desk: you are a visible presence on the shop floor.

Together with the production team, you ensure that quality and food safety are not merely systems on paper, but form a practical and widely supported part of day-to-day work.

You will mainly work from Monday to Friday and will have broad QA/QC responsibilities within a production environment. This is expressly not a laboratory role: the focus is on quality assurance, food safety, processes and collaboration with production.

Your responsibilities

• Ensuring food safety and quality systems: You will manage, maintain and optimise the quality system, with IFS as the key standard. You will also monitor other certifications, such as Belplume, organic certification and customer-specific requirements.
• HACCP and food safety: You will manage and update the HACCP plan, carry out risk analyses, monitor CCPs and take appropriate action where necessary.
• Audit support: You will prepare for and support certification, client and regulatory audits. You will follow up on non-conformities and action points and carry out internal audits at your own production site. Subject to agreement, you may also carry out audits at other sites within the group, enabling you to exchange knowledge and best practice with other quality colleagues.
• Traceability and recalls: You will monitor the traceability systems and organise regular traceability and recall tests. You will also actively contribute ideas on how to improve traceability.
• QA/QC and product release: You will monitor quality controls and analyses and, where necessary, carry out limited microbiological and physico-chemical tests. You will assess results and provide support with product release and the investigation of non-conformities.
• Non-conformities and corrective actions: You investigate complaints and non-conformities, carry out root cause analyses and translate your findings into specific corrective and preventive measures.
• Supplier and procurement quality: You will assist with quality assurance for suppliers and raw materials. You will monitor certificates, analyses, product specifications and other relevant documents, and ensure that they comply with the specified requirements and applicable legislation.
• Coaching and collaboration with production: You will work closely with production and other departments to ensure quality guidelines are correctly applied and to implement practical improvements.
• Expansion of the new production line: You will play an active role in setting up and further developing the new production environment. In doing so, you will ensure that quality, hygiene and food safety requirements are correctly integrated into processes, procedures and working methods right from the start.

Profile

You are a highly competent quality professional who derives satisfaction from bridging the gap between theory and practice. You are pragmatic, have strong communication skills and feel at home in a dynamic production environment.

Experience with eggs is not required. However, experience in another (high-care) food environment would be an advantage.

• a master’s degree in food technology, bioengineering, biochemistry, life sciences or a similar field; or
• a relevant professional bachelor’s degree, supplemented by demonstrable experience in quality and food safety within the food industry.

You are also eligible if you have recently graduated with a relevant Master’s degree in nutrition, food science or a similar field. Do you hold a Bachelor’s degree and have relevant experience in quality and food safety? If so, we would also like to invite you to apply.

In addition:

• Do you have knowledge of IFS, HACCP and relevant legislation?;
• Ideally, you will have experience of internal and external audits;
• are you fluent in Dutch and English;
• you have a pragmatic approach and know how to turn problems into workable solutions;
• you have strong communication skills and can switch easily between dealing with operators, colleagues, suppliers, auditors, customers and management;
• Are you willing to maintain a visible and active presence in the workplace?.

Organisation

The production site in Tessenderlo specialises in sorting and packing eggs for major retail customers. Every week, more than 6 million eggs are processed here using a modern sorting machine.

In addition, fresh eggs are pasteurised in their shells at the site. This is an innovative process that enables vulnerable groups to consume raw eggs safely.

The site has around 50 staff and boasts a down-to-earth, informal working atmosphere. You’ll be working in an environment where people come first and where ideas for improvement are encouraged.

As the production site is being expanded to include a new process, quality and food safety requirements are also increasing further. There is therefore scope to strengthen the quality team.

Offer

You will be joining a stable and financially sound organisation with an informal working atmosphere, short lines of communication and a high level of commitment.

• Additional benefits: Meal vouchers, hospitalisation insurance and group insurance.
• Equipment: A company-issued laptop and smartphone.
• Contract: 39 hours per week, with the possibility of a permanent contract.
• Working hours: You will work day shifts, mainly from Monday to Friday.
• Development: You will be given plenty of scope to shape your role yourself and, in time, to progress towards becoming a Quality Manager.