Senior Production Manager

Role Overview

Lead day-to-day production in a high-volume food manufacturing operation, translating demand into practical production plans and keeping teams, equipment and materials aligned. The role is accountable for meeting output and cost targets while protecting product quality, food safety and employee wellbeing.

Key Responsibilities

• Schedule and coordinate daily production activities to meet output plans and customer requirements.
• Review labour, ingredient usage and product yields to improve productivity and control manufacturing costs.
• Manage staffing levels, shift coverage and overtime in line with operational needs.
• Maintain compliance with food safety, quality, hygiene, HACCP, GMP and workplace safety requirements.
• Work with Engineering to coordinate equipment maintenance and reduce downtime, waste and rejected product.
• Lead and develop production employees, setting clear expectations and following up on performance targets.
• Track production KPIs, report results and put continuous improvement actions into practice.
• Coordinate with Quality Assurance, Engineering, Planning, Stores and Dispatch to support an efficient production flow.

Requirements & Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Food Science or a related discipline.
• 15 years of relevant experience, including at least 3 years in a management role.
• Strong background in production planning, capacity optimisation and operational performance in high-volume food manufacturing.
• Working knowledge of HACCP, GMP and food safety systems, as well as cost control, yield management and labour productivity.
• Ability to use operational data to guide decisions and improve costs, output and resource utilisation.
• Demonstrated leadership, accountability, communication and cross-functional collaboration skills.
• Experience in meat processing, FMCG manufacturing or a comparable high-volume food production environment is an advantage.