Food Safety & Quality Specialist

About the Role

The Food Safety & Quality (FSQ) Specialist executes, verifies, and continuously improves food safety, quality, animal welfare, biosecurity, and regulatory compliance programs across shell egg grading/packing and liquid egg breaking operations. This role serves as a key on-site resource to ensure compliance with company standards, customer requirements, animal welfare, biosecurity, USDA, FDA, and SQF.

Responsibilities

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Maintain inventory and order supplies for FSQ and laboratory programs.
• Provide oversight of processing activities.
• Perform other duties as assigned based on business needs.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Quality, Food, or Biological Sciences or equivalent experience is preferred.
• SQF certification (required within 6 months of employment if not already held).
• HACCP certification (required within 6 months of employment if not already held).
• Internal Audit certification (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.

Skills

• 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.
• 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 (GMPs) due to working in a food manufacturing environment (e.g., hairnets, clean clothes).