Food Safety Quality Associate Chemist

Cargill is a family company committed to providing food and agricultural solutions to nourish the world in a safe, responsible, and sustainable way. We partner with producers and customers to source, make, and deliver products that are vital for living. This position is in our Food Enterprise, serving food manufacturers, food service customers, and retailers with innovative ingredients and branded products, including poultry, beef, egg, alternative protein, salt, oils, starches, sweeteners, cocoa, and chocolate.

About the role

The Food Safety Quality Associate Chemist ensures products meet or exceed customer requirements for quality and food safety. You will apply a basic understanding of plant processes to monitor quality assurance systems, including instrumentation calibration, maintenance, crosschecks, methods, procedures, raw materials, food safety, and training. This role provides technical advice and support to production operations to ensure product quality, minimize process variation, reduce waste, and improve customer satisfaction.

Responsibilities

• Assure product meets compliance specifications and perform final product approval checks.
• Conduct data analysis, trend identification, troubleshooting, corrective action, and communication regarding processing data.
• Assess process quality parameters and food safety and quality systems daily, including cross checks, raw materials, calibration, maintenance, procedures, food safety, training, auditing, and oversight of analytical testing performed in control rooms.
• Train new food safety and quality chemists, analysts, operators, technicians, and personnel from other functional areas.
• Handle basic issues and problems under direct supervision; escalate more complex issues to appropriate staff.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in a related field or equivalent experience.
• Willing and able to work on a rotating shift, including weekends.

Preferred Qualifications

• Ability to adapt and learn in a changing work environment.
• Ability to anticipate, recognize, and address process and laboratory problems; implement improvements based on findings.
• Strong analytical skills to evaluate change factors and formulate independent decisions.
• Experience with email, spreadsheet, and word processing applications.

Schedule

Dayshift: Monday – Friday, 7:00 AM – 4:30 PM (to start). Transition to a 12-hour shift (6:00 AM – 6:00 PM) with rotating days and occasional weekends and holidays.

Position is based in Fort Dodge, IA. Relocation assistance is not provided for this role.