Responsibilities

- Accountable for understanding and adhering to all applicable food safety, food quality, and regulatory requirements, including federal, provincial, municipal, customer, and industry requirements. This includes regulations and requirements administered by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), applicable provincial health and food safety authorities, the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (SFCR), the Food and Drugs Act and Food and Drug Regulations, applicable weights and measures requirements, and other applicable Canadian food legislation.

- Accountable for leading the bakery's HACCP/Food Safety Plan team in the evaluation and implementation of controls for all biological, chemical (including allergens), physical, and economically motivated food safety hazards. This includes consideration of defect action limits, hygienic zoning, sanitation controls, environmental monitoring, and appropriate by-product and waste controls.

- Accountable for identifying food safety and adulteration hazards associated with products, ingredients, equipment, and processes; implementing controls to minimize those hazards; verifying that controls are effective; and designing and implementing corrective actions when deviations occur.

- Accountable for developing, implementing, maintaining, and reviewing the bakery's HACCP-based Food Safety Plan and associated preventive controls in accordance with Canadian regulatory requirements and applicable GFSI standards.

- Accountable for maintaining current knowledge of Canadian food safety regulations and requirements and ensuring that the Food Safety Plan is reviewed and re-evaluated as required, including changes to products, processes, equipment, ingredients, suppliers, regulations, customer requirements, and food safety risks.

- Accountable for updating and re-evaluating existing food safety programs to incorporate current Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs), sanitation controls, allergen controls, environmental monitoring, supplier controls, process controls, traceability, recall requirements, and applicable regulatory requirements.

- Accountable for ensuring strict adherence to the company's Integrated Management System and all applicable Food Safety and Quality Assurance programs.

- Accountable for maintaining compliance with the applicable Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI)-recognized standard, including BRCGS, at the bakery location. Assists the Bakery Director and management team in reviewing food safety and quality programs and maintaining compliance with the applicable BRCGS standard.

- Serves as the technical expert during CFIA inspections, customer audits, third-party certification audits, and other regulatory or industry audits.

- Accountable for ensuring that all employees receive appropriate training to effectively perform their food safety and quality responsibilities. Establishes and maintains a training and skills matrix for the FSQA team with clear development and succession planning.

- Actively leads and promotes a strong food safety culture throughout the bakery.

- Able to quickly and thoroughly investigate product or process failures, determine root cause, and implement prompt corrective actions while minimizing product exposure and production downtime. This includes foreign material investigations and other food safety incidents.





- Protects company and customer brands by identifying potential food safety and quality risks, uncovering improvement opportunities, and providing effective solutions.

- Accountable for reporting food safety and quality nonconformities, corrective actions, preventive measures, and significant risks to the Bakery Management Team and direct report.

- Identifies opportunities to utilize technology, automation, data analysis, and innovation to improve the effectiveness of the FSQA department.

- Develops and maintains effective relationships with internal departments, external suppliers, laboratories, service providers, customers, auditors, and regulatory authorities to achieve departmental and company-wide objectives.

- Works to maintain and continuously improve the safety, legality, quality, and consistency of all food products manufactured at the bakery and the processes used to manufacture them.

- Accountable for leading investigations of customer and consumer complaints relating to products manufactured on-site. Utilizes root cause analysis to determine corrective actions and preventive measures, responds to complaints within required timelines, and analyzes complaint trends to identify opportunities for continuous improvement.

- Accountable for the day-to-day management of the Food Safety and Quality Assurance team, including establishing clear objectives, responsibilities, and performance expectations aligned with bakery FSQA KPIs.

- Accountable for monitoring and managing the Food Safety and Quality Assurance department budget.

- Utilizes appropriate statistical process control (SPC), sampling plans, trend analysis, and statistical methods to monitor process capability and verify compliance with established requirements.

- Authorized to place products on QA hold and release products following the appropriate investigation and disposition process when food safety or quality nonconformities occur. Ensures products placed on hold are appropriately identified, segregated, documented, and controlled within the company's inventory management system.

- Ensures daily product sensory evaluations are conducted, with appropriate participation from the bakery team, to identify potential defects, monitor product quality, and provide direction for improvement.

- Responsible for the review, approval, and performance monitoring of external suppliers and service providers relating to FSQA.

- Responsible for ensuring materials and ingredients are received from approved suppliers and assists with raw material supplier qualification, approval, monitoring, and performance evaluation.

- Responsible for the effective implementation and maintenance of traceability, stock recovery, product withdrawal, and recall programs, including accurate and timely mock traceability and recall exercises. Escalates significant concerns to the direct report and Bakery Director.

- Accountable for providing technical advice and direction concerning food safety, quality, regulatory,



and sanitation policies and ensuring the bakery team remains informed of applicable scientific, industry, customer, and regulatory changes.

- Accountable for upholding the company's values of integrity, ownership, customer focus, creativity, and care, bringing these values into daily work and decision-making.

- Promotes and exemplifies a safe and healthy work environment and ensures all activities are conducted in accordance with applicable workplace health and safety requirements. Reports unsafe conditions to their direct report and Bakery Director.

- Accountable for leading and developing a capable, effective, and promotable FSQA team, with an emphasis on employee development, cross-training, and succession planning.

- Performs other duties as assigned by their direct report and is expected to effectively manage and implement organizational, operational, regulatory, and food safety changes.

Required Qualifications

- Excellent leadership, communication, coaching, and team-building skills.

- Bachelor's degree in Food Science, Food Technology, Microbiology, Chemistry, or a related field preferred. Equivalent combination of education, technical training, and food manufacturing experience may be considered.

- HACCP training/certification with demonstrated ability to develop, implement, maintain, and verify a HACCP-based Food Safety Plan.

- PCQI certification is considered an asset, particularly for facilities that manufacture products for export to the United States or otherwise fall under applicable U.S. FDA requirements.

- Certification or formal training in a GFSI-recognized food safety standard, such as BRCGS, SQF, or equivalent.

- Strong understanding of Canadian food safety legislation and regulatory requirements, including CFIA requirements, Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (SFCR), Food and Drugs Act, Food and Drug Regulations, and applicable provincial requirements.

- Strong understanding of food microbiology, aseptic sampling techniques, microbiological testing methods, environmental monitoring, and interpretation of laboratory results.

- 5–7 years of experience in food manufacturing, food safety, quality assurance, or a related technical field, including demonstrated leadership experience.

- Strong knowledge of food hygiene, hygienic zoning, GMPs, sanitation programs, allergen management, environmental monitoring, foreign material prevention, pest control, and food safety risk assessment.

- Solid writing, statistical, analytical, problem-solving, and critical-thinking skills.

- Proficient computer skills, including Microsoft Office/Excel, statistical or quality-management software, ERP systems, and other applicable food safety and quality management systems.

- Previous experience with GFSI, BRCGS, SQF, CFIA, customer, and/or third-party food safety audits is highly desirable.

- Experience working in a high-volume food manufacturing or bakery environment is considered an asset.

- Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced manufacturing environment and provide timely decisions and direction during food safety, quality, and production issues.

- Strong understanding of root cause analysis, corrective and preventive actions (CAPA), non-conformance management, internal auditing, verification, validation, and continuous improvement.

Pay: $30.00-$42.00 per hour

Expected hours: 40.0 per week

Work Location: In person

📌 Quality Assurance Manager (Edmonton)
🏢 Special D Baking
📍 Edmonton