Montezuma's Chocolates
QA Manager - Food manufacturing
How your CV stacks up
Upload your CV to see how well it fits this job role
?%
Location: Birdham, West Sussex
Department: Technical
Reports to: Technical Manager
About the Role
We are looking for a commercial Quality Manager to join our small Technical team. This is a fantastic opportunity for a quality professional with a passion for food safety, compliance, and continuous improvement to play a key role in maintaining and enhancing our Quality Management System.
Working closely with the Technical Manager, you will lead the Quality Assurance team, ensuring the highest standards of food safety, quality, legality, and authenticity are consistently achieved. You'll champion a culture of quality across the site while ensuring compliance with BRCGS, retailer standards, Soil Association, Fairtrade requirements, legislation, and company policies.
What You Will Be Doing
- Lead the day-to-day management of the site's Quality Management System (QMS), driving continuous improvement.
- Prepare for and lead BRCGS, customer, retailer, Soil Association, Fairtrade, and third-party audits, ensuring the site remains audit-ready at all times.
- Manage the internal audit programme, ensuring corrective and preventative actions are completed effectively and on time.
- Act as HACCP Team Leader, maintaining and reviewing the HACCP system to ensure ongoing compliance.
- Lead, coach, and develop the Quality Assurance team through effective training, performance management, and resource planning.
- Ensure compliance with food safety, quality, legal, and customer requirements throughout the manufacturing operation.
- Oversee investigations into non-conformances, identifying root causes, and implementing effective corrective actions.
- Verify GMP standards, hygiene, factory quality checks, and product monitoring activities.
- Support product release, ensuring products meet specification before dispatch.
- Manage the customer complaints process, ensuring timely investigations and responses.
- Work closely with Production, Engineering, Planning, and other departments to drive quality improvements and operational excellence.
- Support New Product Development trials and technical sign-off activities.
- Monitor quality KPIs, identify trends, and lead continuous improvement initiatives.
- Deputise for the Technical Manager when required.
Reasons to use Rodeo
Start with a chat, not a search bar
Grad scheme, placement, apprenticeship? Not sure what you want yet — that's fine. Your agent talks it through with you and turns "I have no idea" into a shortlist.
It searches the market for you
Every day your agent scans the market matching roles against what actually matters to you, not just keywords on a CV.
Only hits
No noise. No "maybe this fits." Just roles with a clear explanation of why they're right — and where to focus when applying.
What We Are Looking For
- Previous experience in a Quality Manager, QA Manager, or Senior Quality role within the food manufacturing industry.
- A thorough understanding of BRCGS standards and retailer requirements.
- Experience of leading external audits and maintaining certification standards.
- HACCP Team Leader experience.
- Excellent knowledge of food safety legislation, GMP, and quality management systems.
- Strong technical knowledge.
- Strong commercial acumen, including the ability to think of the business and customer needs, as well as the Technical perspective.
- Excellent leadership skills, experience leading, coaching, and developing people.
- A proactive approach to continuous improvement and a mindset of delivering high standards.
- Strong problem-solving skills with experience of root cause analysis and corrective action management.
- Excellent communication and organizational skills, with the ability to influence across all departments and explain things in a way that people understand and engage with.
Get help with your application
Your very own career expert that helps elevate your application to the next level.
Apply today if you're ready to take the next step in your quality career and become part of a fast-paced, commercial thinking business where producing quality products is at the heart of everything we do.
“It took my CV and asked me questions relevant to understanding what kind of jobs to suggest for me. Suggestions were almost perfect. Jobs were exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
Jessica, London
Skills