Director of Food Safety

Stampede Culinary Partners•Bridgeview, IL

1d•Remote

About The Position

This role owns corporate food safety programs, ensuring consistent implementation, verification, and continuous improvement across all company facilities. The Director establishes standards, tools, training, and performance expectations to assure food safety, regulatory compliance, and product quality. This position provides corporate governance and technical leadership for all food safety intervention systems, verifying their effectiveness, driving validation/verification plans, and leading continuous improvement across sites. The role also leads HACCP system design, implementation, verification, and reassessment activities, ensuring alignment with regulatory and customer requirements. Additionally, it establishes company-wide SSOP/sanitation program standards, leads multi-site audit readiness, serves as a corporate technical liaison for USDA-FSIS and FDA, and develops enterprise food safety training. The Director will be the lead recall/withdrawal coordinator, provide food safety leadership for new product introductions, partner with Supply Chain and QA on supplier programs, oversee the Tracegains supplier approval module, define and monitor food safety KPIs, conduct internal audits, support site teams during deviations, oversee food safety regulatory requirements for export programs, conduct shelf-life studies, and provide governance for sanitation chemical programs and raw material receiving.

Requirements

A minimum of three years FSQA Management experience is required.
Understanding of the USDA-FSIS and FDA regulations, label requirements, GMPs (Good Manufacturing - Practices) and good QA practices, processes, and requirements.

Nice To Haves

A minimum of a B.S degree in Animal Science, Meat Science or related field is preferred.
A minimum of five years general FSQA experience in meat processing preferred.
Experience in sanitation procedures and sanitation chemicals preferred but not required.
HACCP Certified
PCQI Certified
Food Safety and Handling certifications

Responsibilities

Owns corporate food safety programs and ensures consistent implementation, verification, and continuous improvement across all company facilities.
Establishes standards, tools, training, and performance expectations to assure food safety, regulatory compliance, and product quality.
Provides corporate governance and technical leadership for all food safety intervention systems; verifies effectiveness, drives validation/verification plans, and leads continuous improvement across sites.
Leads HACCP system design, implementation, verification, and reassessment activities across facilities; ensures programs are aligned with regulatory and customer requirements and maintained current.
Establishes company-wide SSOP/sanitation program standards (including ATP/environmental monitoring where applicable), trending, corrective action expectations, and verification routines.
Leads multi-site GFSI, regulatory and customer audit readiness; coordinates audits, standardizes evidence packages, and ensures timely corrective and preventive action closure.
Serves as a corporate technical liaison for USDA-FSIS (and FDA as applicable), including support for NRs, regulatory correspondence, and resolution of findings across facilities.
Develops and deploys enterprise food safety training (HACCP, GMP, sanitation, allergen management, food defense, etc.); ensures training effectiveness and compliance across sites.
Will be the leads recall/withdrawal coordinator/director.
Provides food safety leadership for new product introductions and process changes across sites, including risk assessments, validation plans, and start-up verification.
Partners with Supply Chain and QA to ensure supplier documentation and approval/verification programs support food safety requirements (specifications, allergen statements, nutritional information, ingredient formulations, COAs).
Oversee Tracegains supplier approval module.
Defines and monitors food safety KPIs and leading indicators; prepares enterprise reporting, trends, and action plans for leadership review.
Conducts or leads internal audits and cross-site assessments; identifies systemic gaps and drives standard work and corrective actions to prevent recurrence.
Supports site teams during deviations, investigations, and pre-op/sanitation issues; verifies root cause analysis and corrective action effectiveness.
Oversees food safety regulatory and customer requirements related to export programs and Country of Origin Labeling (COOL), as applicable; ensures site execution and documentation support.
Conducts shelf-life studies and customer-required validations.
Provides governance for sanitation chemical program requirements (approved suppliers, inventory/usage controls, and SDS access) in partnership with Sanitation and site teams.
Maintains corporate standards for raw material receiving and inspection program requirements and works with sites to ensure consistent execution against specifications.