A leading supplier in the food & beverage industry has an exciting opportunity for a QC Analyst to join its Sensory Department. Your role will be to conduct routine testing of samples and to lead sensory assessment panels. This would suit a recent sciencegraduate keen to develop their lab skills, or someone with previous QC experience happy in this grade of role. **KEY DUTIES** - Quality Control _ - Routine testing of samples submitted to QC - Reviewing the requirements of each sample & leading the daily sensory assessment panel for routine quality control of raw materials and finished product and for product development samples. - Prepare samples for assessment by the sensory panel ensuring products are representative and tasted at the most appropriate dilution to determine any issues - Maintaining the retained samples ensuring that samples are available for review when required - Identify opportunities to continuously improve the processes and testing parameters for sensory testing of materials - Collate the sensory panel results for reporting and identify issues - Sensory training _ - Ensure Sensory panellists are using good tasting techniques and scoring materials consistently - Arrange and oversee training and testing programmes of panellists at appropriate intervals to ensure all panellists are working to the same criteria, i.e. the skills and scoring are 'calibrated' - Complaints and corrective actions _ - Support investigations into product quality complaints and failures due to sensory criteria - Implement appropriate corrective action in the sensory lab or testing parameters where required - Improvement Activity and Projects _ - Highlight required areas for improvement and liaise with other Department members to allow completion against set timescales - Support Company goals by involvement within area improvement teams - Training and Development _ - Identify own training needs to improve Department performance - Participate fully in relevant training courses - Generation/review of written procedures for own category/value stream **EXPERIENCE & SKILLS REQUIRED** - Excellent sensory capability - High attention to detail with accurate record keeping & a passion for continuous improvement - Experience in a quality testing lab - Understanding of statistical methods in analysing results - Excellent communication skills both within the team and to stakeholders across the business - Enthusiasm, self-motivation and a "can do" attitude with the ability to manage own workload effectively - Flexibility and willingness to carry out urgent and routine tasks - Willingness to collaborate and build relationships across the business, to be customer focused and to be a team player - Excellent time management skills with the ability to work to deadlines and prioritise own workload - Excellent working knowledge of MS Office (Word, Excel, Outlook) with ability to use Excel to analyse data - Analytical thinking for practical problem solving and achieving stretch targets **Due to the location of this site, you must have a valid drivers license and your own transport.