Food Safety & Quality Specialist - Chemist - 1St Shift

About the role

Located in Commerce, CA, the Food Safety & Quality Specialist will fill an essential role in the monitoring and advancement of our safety and quality programs and will be part of the Quality team reporting to the Quality Manager. Through daily process checks as well as short- and long-term projects, the Quality specialist will ensure the integrity of each batch of Taste materials that we produce, so that our customers can always enjoy our product with full confidence and satisfaction. The quality specialist will also lead monitoring compliance with quality standards on production floor to ensure product conforms to specification and food safety practices and assist in documentation involving HACCP, Food Safety, and Good Manufacturing Practices. The individual will be a backup to the Quality Supervisor in several analytical processes including but not limited to, bench work assisting the QA Techs with direction and suggestion of their assigned duties, making educated decisions on the correct procedures within the Quality Department, and instruct correctly on best practices for achieving acceptable results on testing and sampling.

Hours will be 7:00 am - 4:00 pm, Monday - Friday!

What would you do?

• Work on the corrective actions of any customer complaints / issues.
• Collaborates with Production to investigate and prevent out of spec product.
• Perform sensory, physical, chemical, and / or instrumental evaluation of raw material, in process, or finished products following SOP and specifications.
• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to use hands to finger, handle, or feel; talk or hear; and taste or smell. The employee frequently is required to stand, walk, sit, and reach with hands and arms. The employee is occasionally required to climb or balance and stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl. The employee must regularly lift and/or move up to 5kg and occasionally lift and/or move up to 22.6kg. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, and color vision.
• Responsible for food safety and quality, along with everyone at the site. Provides guidance to others to minimize food safety risk and achieve quality expectations based on understanding of quality and food safety systems.
• Manages the annual site document review/approve process, named as a Intelex Super User, makes necessary revisions to site documents, Provides Intelex instruction and help to site personnel, maintains site document index, Identifies and destroys obsolete procedures, work instructions, forms, maintains site record register (FSQ) Identifies and destroys expired FSQ records.
• Assists in maintaining product specifications MSDS, TDS, and kosher documents.
• This position requires exposures to a wide range of temperature and humidity conditions, handling of certain hazardous chemicals and exposure to common microbiological organisms. Proper Personal Protective Protection (PPE) and GMP shall be followed at all times.
• Performs equipment/calibration in the lab and plant where appropriate.
• Disposition of material produced as well as incoming material.
• Responsible for analyzing test data to determine acceptability.
• Complies with customer order requirements and perform duties that are needed to meet these requirements (chemical analysis, product approvals, COA, and specifications).
• The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
• Participates in preparation for external audits, Submits monthly KPI/QIP metrics for the site, May act as change coordinator for Change Review Team, Reviews regional procedures, customer requirements, SQF code to ensure site compliance, May act as site SQF Practitioner (or back up), Performs verification activities such as EM trending, pest activity charting, MSS completion rates, etc., Maintains required lists and logs such as chemical inventory, breakables, specifications, service providers, etc., May act as site PCQI (or back up) May perform periodic reviews of manufacturing related records.
• Maintains incoming and outgoing products (tracking, analysis, record keeping, database, etc).

What will you need to be successful?

• Bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution in Chemistry (Highly preferred) or in an applicable field of study such as Food Science, Biochemistry, Microbiology, or similar Science/Engineering.
• Knowledge of juices/flavors/essential oils and sensory analysis:Depth use and maintenance of analytical instrumentation (GC/MS and GC/FID) is a must.
• 3-5 years of lab experience in food and/or chemistry preferred.
• Knowledge of relevant GFSI standards such as SQF, BRC, IFS is a plus.

Accuracy & attention to detail is required.
Analytical and problem-solving skills.
Take initiative and proactive attitude.
Multi-tasking is critical to this position.
The ability to speak read and write clearly in English.
Ability to use and maintain lab equipment and computer skills.
Must be able to be exposed to and perform sensory evaluation on a variety of flavor and fragrance products, essential oils and raw materials.

Kerry is an equal opportunity employer. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, national or ethnic origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age disability, protected veteran status or other characteristics protected by law. Kerry will only employ those who are legally authorized to work in the United States for this opening. Any offer of employment is conditional upon the successful completion of a background investigation and drug screen. EEO is the Law poster can be found here. Additional information can also be here .

Beware of scams online or from individuals claiming to represent us. A Kerry employee will not solicit candidates through a non-Kerry email address or phone number. In addition, Kerry does not currently utilise video chat rooms (e.g., Google Hangouts) to conduct interviews. Refuse any request that asks you to provide payment to participate in the hiring process (e.g., purchasing a “starter kit,” investing in training, or something similar). Kerry will not ask you to pay any money at any point in the hiring process with the exception of reimbursable travel expenses. In addition, any payments made by Kerry will be from official firm accounts bearing the Kerry name.

Job Type: Full-time

Pay: $60,000.00 - $70,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• 401(k)
• Vision insurance
• Dental insurance
• Paid time off
• Health insurance

Experience level:

• 3 years

Schedule:

• 8 hour shift
• Monday to Friday

Work setting:

• In-person

Ability to commute/relocate:

• Los Angeles, CA 90040: Reliably commute or planning to relocate before starting work (Required)

Education:

• Bachelor's (Required)

Experience:

• Laboratory: 3 years (Required)

Work Location: In person