Vitacress
Supplier Technical Manager
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Supplier Technical Manager
Location: St Mary Bourne (near Andover), with travel to farms and suppliers Hours: 40 per week Working Pattern: 0800 – 1630 Salary: Competitive, with eligibility for an incentive scheme, company pension and private medical insurance
Can you lead supplier technical assurance across a fresh produce supply chain, ensuring the highest standards of quality, safety and compliance? Are you confident acting as the key link between growers, suppliers, and factory teams to drive performance, resolve challenges and deliver continuous improvement?
In this role…
- Support and advise farms and suppliers in meeting requirements on food safety and due diligence, sharing best practice.
- Act as the key technical link between growers, suppliers, factory teams, and customers.
- Manage supplier risk, proactively identifying and resolving crop quality, pest, disease and food safety challenges.
- Lead supplier visit and auditing programmes, covering crop quality, ethical and food safety topics, collaboratively agreed with procurement based on risk assessment.
- Influence supplier performance through collaboration with procurement, agronomy, technical and commercial teams.
- Drive improvements in quality, shelf life, sustainability and overall supply chain capability.
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Key Responsibilities
You’ll oversee the following tasks:
- Manage supplier due diligence, onboarding and compliance documentation across raw materials and ingredients.
- Lead supplier audit and visit programmes covering crop quality, food safety, and ethical standards.
- Monitor microbiological and pesticide residue testing programmes, driving corrective actions where required.
- Review crop risk, pre-harvest assessments and HACCP compliance across the supply base.
- Produce weekly crop quality reports and track supplier performance through KPIs and end-of-season reviews.
- Support customer visits, internal teams and investigations, while building strong supplier relationships and sharing best practice.
- Drive improvements in quality, shelf life, sustainability, and supplier capability.
- Manage web-based platforms such as Food Experts and Land App, as well as relevant customer portals.
- Actively participate in weekly farm and supplier meetings and write crop reports for customers.
Required Experience & Qualifications
You can succeed in this role if you have:
- Proven experience in supplier assurance, auditing, quality, and compliance within fresh produce or agri-food supply chains.
- Strong knowledge of:
- BRCGS
- Red Tractor
- GlobalGAP
- LEAF
- Ethical compliance standards
- Solid understanding of farm risk assessments and ideally HACCP Level 3 certification.
- Excellent communication and influencing skills, with a proactive, customer-focused mindset.
- Commercial awareness and the ability to drive continuous improvement across suppliers.
- A degree in Food Science, Agri-Food, or a relevant field.
- Qualifications in BASIS and/or FACTS would be advantageous.
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About Us
Vitacress Salads, based in the leafy St Mary Bourne, Andover, is one of the principal salad and watercress suppliers in the UK. With our own salad leaf farms, we take immense pride in delivering a field-to-fork operation.
We grow, wash, pack, and distribute saclam and watercress for retailer own brands and our own brand, Steve’s Leaves.
At Vitacress, we ensure the best possible standard—supporting our authentic, customer-first culture. We empower you to deliver excellence, whether it’s growing our products, maintaining relationships with customers, or nurturing talent.
Our mission is rooted in trust and transparency. From the field to your fork, we prioritise continuous growth and employee development.
Join us and become a trusted partner in our business.
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