Head of Operations
Position Summary
Garden Fresh Produce LLC is a growing fresh produce wholesale company seeking an experienced operations leader to oversee daily operations, from receiving and quality control to inventory, order fulfillment, routing, and customer delivery. This role involves direct interaction with various departments and requires strong produce knowledge and practical experience.
Key Responsibilities
Daily Operations Leadership: Oversee warehouse, transportation, inventory, and fulfillment operations. Set priorities, solve issues, and improve execution. Create routines, checklists, and accountability for staff.
Warehouse Operations: Manage receiving, inspection, put-away, storage, picking, packing, staging, and shipping. Ensure orders are accurate and loaded correctly. Maintain clean, safe, and organized conditions.
Produce Quality & Food Safety: Maintain high standards for freshness, appearance, temperature control, and handling. Coordinate with buyers, sales, and vendors for credits, claims, substitutions, or rejections.
Transportation & Delivery: Oversee daily delivery planning, driver schedules, routing, and loading priorities. Ensure accurate, complete, and on-time customer deliveries. Coordinate with sales and customer service to resolve issues.
Purchasing & Vendor Coordination: Support product availability and replenishment. Coordinate receiving schedules and help plan for seasonal volume changes, market availability, holidays, and customer demand spikes.
Team Leadership: Directly manage and coach warehouse, receiving, inventory, shipping, driver, and operations staff. Set clear expectations for attendance, productivity, accuracy, cleanliness, and teamwork.
Systems, Reporting & Process Improvement: Use inventory, order, routing, and accounting systems to improve accuracy and visibility. Implement or improve practical tools and track key metrics.
Financial & Cost Control: Help control labor, overtime, transportation costs, product shrink, credits, and avoidable waste. Monitor warehouse productivity and staffing levels. Improve truck utilization and delivery efficiency.
Qualifications
7+ years of operations experience in fresh produce, food distribution, grocery wholesale, foodservice distribution, or a similar perishable goods environment.
Hands-on experience managing warehouse and delivery operations.
Strong understanding of fresh produce handling, quality, rotation, cold chain, and spoilage control.
Experience supervising warehouse staff, drivers, receivers, inventory staff, or operations leads.
Practical knowledge of routing, delivery scheduling, fleet coordination, and third-party carriers.
Comfortable working in a fast-paced, early-morning, hands-on wholesale environment.
Strong communication skills and ability to work closely with ownership, sales, buyers, drivers, and warehouse employees.
Able to solve problems quickly and make sound decisions under pressure.
Comfortable using inventory/order systems, spreadsheets, and basic KPI reporting.
Bilingual English/Spanish or English/Russian is a plus, depending on workforce and customer base.
Bachelor’s degree is helpful but not required; relevant produce and operations experience is more important.
Preferred Experience: Experience in one or more of the following is strongly preferred: Fresh produce wholesale, produce terminal markets, grocery or independent supermarket distribution, foodservice produce distribution, perishable inventory management, refrigerated warehouse operations, local and regional delivery operations, small or family-owned business operations.