Hygiene & QA Lead

About Kerry

About the role

Are you passionate about food safety, quality, and operational excellence? We're looking for a Hygiene & QA Lead to champion hygiene, sanitation, and quality standards across our manufacturing site in Penafiel, ensuring we consistently deliver products our customers can trust.

This is a hands-on leadership role where you'll drive best-in-class hygiene practices, lead a dedicated team, and work closely with Production, Engineering, and Quality colleagues to strengthen food safety culture and deliver continuous improvement.

Key responsibilities

• Lead all site hygiene and sanitation activities, ensuring compliance with Kerry, GFSI, customer, and regulatory standards.
• Manage and develop the site Hygiene Team and oversee third-party hygiene and pest control providers.
• Coordinate cleaning validations, verifications, sanitation audits, and environmental monitoring programmes.
• Analyse hygiene, microbiological, allergen, and pest control trends, driving corrective and preventative actions.
• Support HACCP, risk assessments, allergen management, and hygienic design initiatives across the site.
• Provide training and coaching to promote food safety, hygiene awareness, and operational excellence.
• Lead the management of the site laboratory, including equipment maintenance, stock control, and associated quality activities.
• Manage non-conformances and investigations, ensuring timely closure and effective corrective actions.
• Partner closely with Production, Engineering, and Quality teams to continuously improve site standards and performance.

Qualifications and skills

• Experience in Hygiene, Quality Assurance, Food Safety, or Sanitation within a food manufacturing environment.
• Strong working knowledge of HACCP, GMP, allergen management, environmental monitoring, and food safety standards.
• Proven leadership experience with the ability to influence, engage, and develop teams.
• Strong problem-solving skills and a passion for continuous improvement.
• Degree or Diploma in Food Science, Microbiology, Food Technology, Quality, or a related discipline.