QA Technician (Food Science)

About the role

The Quality Assurance Technician ensures that finished products and in-process materials consistently meet established quality and food safety standards. This role focuses on inspecting products, verifying documentation, performing testing and monitoring activities, and supporting continuous improvement efforts to maximize quality and operational efficiency in a food manufacturing environment. This is a Contract to Hire position based out of Hopkins, MN, working fully onsite on the manufacturing floor with frequent movement between mixing/blending rooms and the production floor. The role requires spending most of the shift on feet, lifting over 20 lbs, and working in moderate noise typical of a beverage facility.

Responsibilities

• Perform inspections of finished products and work in progress to verify adherence to quality, safety, and specification requirements.
• Complete all required quality assurance paperwork accurately and on time, including reviewing records for completeness and correctness.
• Conduct routine floor audits of production and packaging areas to confirm correct product composition, specifications, storage conditions, packaging, labeling, and coding.
• Assist in completing compliance checks for production runs at scheduled frequencies using paper or electronic records, including weights, case checks, label verifications, case verifications, product coding requirements, and customer-driven testing.
• Monitor facility activities through daily inspections, documenting findings and ensuring adherence to quality and food safety standards.
• Inspect, review, and complete pre-operational swabbing and quality program records on a daily basis to support food safety and sanitation programs.
• Identify and report quality-related failures or potential food safety issues to quality leadership and department leaders as required, ensuring timely communication and documentation of follow-up actions.
• Assist quality leadership with execution of sales and customer sample request programs, ensuring samples are prepared, tracked, and documented accurately.
• Initiate hold product procedures for products manufactured out of specification and communicate disposition and status to affected departments.
• Initiate defective material reports for vendor-supplied products that cannot be used due to quality or specification issues.
• Maintain and inspect retain samples to monitor product quality issues and support investigations and trend analysis.
• Execute environmental monitoring, product testing, chemical testing, and glass inspections throughout the facility in accordance with established protocols.
• Complete data entry for laboratory and production results, ensuring records are accurate, organized, and easily accessible for review and audits.
• Support day-to-day operations by identifying opportunities to improve quality and efficiency and by adhering to all quality assurance and food safety programs.
• Perform other related duties and responsibilities as assigned to support the overall quality assurance function.

Requirements

• Experience in quality assurance within a food manufacturing or food production environment.
• Knowledge of food safety principles, including Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) and quality check procedures