Quality Assurance Lead

**The woof-tastic story about us**

At Butternut, our mission is to deliver health and happiness to dogs and their humans all over the world. In order to do just that, we need a hard-working team. And we need quite a big kitchen too. Which is precisely why we have built one. Rudie's Kitchen is the place where we lovingly cook our Butternut meals using only the finest human-quality ingredients. Rudie's is also where we package our meals and box them for our customers all over the UK and beyond. We are a close nit team, with that family feel, looking to welcome more like minded people to our lovely team and keep work life fun and enjoyable.

The way we see it, you wouldn't serve food to dogs that you wouldn't be happy to eat yourself. At Butternut, we believe dogs deserve better, and if that's something you think too, we want to hear from you.
Are you up for the challenge?

‍ **A bit about the role**

As a Quality Technician, you will report into the Technical Manager at Rudie's Kitchen and will ensure that the specified company quality systems and processes are operated in a controlled and effective manner. Ensuring product quality is maintained from raw materials through to dispatched goods.

This role sits somewhere between your normal Quality Role and that of a Senior QA, you will have the freedom of a senior role without any of the line management responsibilities, because of this we are offering an attractive salary for the role of £36,000 per year.
**As part of the role, you will**:

- Ensure a pro-active approach to process and system control/management through educating to the broader team
- Conduct product testing on incoming raw materials and finished goods
- Monitor and trend product quality, identifying improvements and working with other functions (Operations, Process, NPD Engineering and Raw Materials) to deliver them
- Ensure daily / weekly / monthly QA scheduled tasks (i.e. GMP, calibrations, audits and sampling) are completed on time and any subsequent actions are followed up
- Conduct investigations into non-conformance (i.e. incidents, analytical testing, audits and customer complaints) and agree corrective actions and measure the effectiveness.
- Attend process trials
- Ensure new products processes and equipment are smoothly integrated into everyday operation and is fully supported by the Quality Management system (i.e. agreed quality parameters, updates schedules & QAT tasks, Quality Management System SOPs)
- Loves dogs (naturally)
- Previous QA Lead experience is **essential**:

- Pragmatic, adaptable, resilient and humble
- A proven track record of QA, systems management or HACCP in food manufacturing
- Strong understanding of production and packing processes
- Working knowledge of process capability and target setting
- Hungry for a challenge and keen to build something from the ground up
- Someone who loves the pace and excitement of FMCG manufacturing
- The perks*
- Up to* £36,000* per year salary + 257.5 hours holidays (including bank holidays) and an additional 8 hours for every year of service
- 12 hour shifts working a rotation of days and nights
- £500 personal learning & development budget
- Butternut Box employee discount
- Cycle to work scheme
- Pension with NEST
- Some pretty cool socials
- Private Medical Insurance with Vitality

**A Few Things to Chew On**:

- This role is 100% based in our kitchen in Blyth, south of Doncaster (just off the Junction of A1(M) and A614 Hill Top Roundabout, Blyth S81 8HG)
- As our business has grown so has our responsibility to our community, our planet and our business. We are not perfect, but we are committed to doing business the right way and continually improving our social and environmental performance
- We don't use external recruitment agencies for assistance on roles

**Salary**: £36,000.00 per year