About sweetgreen:

sweetgreen is on a mission to build healthier communities by connecting people to real food. We passionately believe that real food should be convenient and accessible to everyone. Every day in each sweetgreen, our 4,000 team members make food from scratch, using fresh ingredients and produce delivered that morning. And in our local communities, we’re committed to leaving people better than we found them. We’re in the business of feeding people, and we’re out to change what that means.

Director of Food Safety & Quality Assurance - Temporary (5-6 months to cover a leave)

As a Director of Food Safety & QA (Temporary), you will lead a team focused on guiding quality and food safety efforts across all sweetgreen locations and concepts. You will be responsible for developing, implementing and managing the Food Safety & QA programs and 2020 strategy in accordance with sweetgreen policies, federal, state and local regulations. As the company grows, this position will provide guidance and support to all aspects of the organization to ensure the safety of sg food. This position will report directly to the Chief Operating Officer.

The right person for this role is a proven leader with experience influencing across an organization, is an excellent communicator, sets a high bar for him/herself, and is adept at developing talent. If you are someone who thrives in a critical leadership position and gains personal satisfaction when sharing knowledge and cross collaborating, then this is a great role for you.

What you’ll do:

• Leads the food safety and quality assurance team
• Manage food safety strategy execution, ensuring brand protection and driving performance improvements across the sweetgreen fleet
• Collaborate cross functionally on emerging food safety concerns, crisis events and industry issues
• Work collaboratively with supply chain team to deliver quality assurance initiatives and goals, onboard and approve new vendors with respect to food safety, quality attributes and product consistency
• Provide guidance to assess, control and resolve food safety risks in restaurants and supply chain in an effective and timely manner
• Drive continuous improvement opportunities in food safety across restaurant operations and supply chain
• Develop and maintain business relationships with appropriate regulatory agencies and act as point of contact for all food safety matters
• Maintain open communication with all departments to provide guidance on food safety and quality assurance programs and strategy
• Develop and report on metrics to measure food safety performance against internal and industry benchmarks
• Educates the organization on current food safety technology, understanding food safety trends and seeing their impact on the company’s strategy
• Contributes food safety and quality expertise to new product development efforts to ensure safe food handling procedures
• Drive food safety culture throughout the organization
• Maintains knowledge of food safety and quality, regulatory requirements including, but not limited to HACCP, FSMA, GMP, FDA Model Food Code for food manufacturing, food products, packaging, distribution and food service operations
• Serves as a liaison with regulatory officials for compliance with local, state, and federal regulations
• Advanced ability to communicate, influence and negotiate decisions while motivating staff
• Provides food safety and quality support to Consumer-Packaged Goods operations

What you’ll bring to the table:

• Minimum 10 years experience in the food industry specifically related to restaurant/production food safety, quality assurance and regulatory.
• Ability to deliver strategies that align with sweetgreen mission and core values.
• In depth knowledge of HACCP, SOPs and government/ industry food safety and quality regulations, codes and standards.
• Able to lead and influence both internal and external cross functional parties.
• Experience and proven ability to effectively process information related to food quality.
• Team leadership experience.
• Excellent communication skills, both written and orally with all levels of business.
• Strong computer skills.
• Must be flexible to travel as needed.

Come join the sweetlife!

sweetgreen provides equal opportunities for everyone that works for us and everyone that applies to join our team, without regard to sex or gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, pregnancy, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, any service, past, present, or future, in the uniformed services of the United States (military or veteran status), or any other consideration protected by federal, state, or local law.