Food Safety & Quality Specialist

Summary

The Food Safety & Quality (FSQ) Specialist is responsible for 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 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.

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.

Animal Welfare, Biosecurity & Feed Safety

• Participate in audits of animal welfare, biosecurity, and feed safety/quality programs.
• 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.

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.

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.

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 be a hands-on self-starter.
• Good communication skills both written and verbal.
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail.
• Thorough knowledge, or ability to attain thorough knowledge, of Food Safety Systems
• Experience with Microsoft Word and Excel
• Professionalism in appearance and work habits, self-organization, sanitation, management, teamwork, and techniques for efficient and cost-effective food production are stressed.
• Prefer experience with Microsoft Access, PowerPoint, and Outlook.
• Ability to interact with individuals from diverse ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds.

Physical Demands

Stand and walk constantly; grip, grasp, push, pull, reach, bend, stoop, lift up to 10 pounds frequently; sit, climb, lift up to 50 pounds occasionally.

Work Environment

Frequently exposed to moving mechanical parts and water, and chemicals. Temperature is regulated for operations standards. Cooler temperatures occur in specific areas. The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate. Proper personal protective equipment will be required during certain working conditions. Employees are required to comply with Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP's) due to working in a food manufacturing environment (hairnets, clean clothes, etc.).