Head of Technical
- Recruiter
- Refresco Beverages Uk Limited
- Location
- Bridgwater
- Salary
- Competitive plus benefits
- Posted
- 22 Apr 2017
- Closes
- 16 May 2017
- Sectors
- Manufacturing & Industrial
- Contract Type
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full Time
Head of Technical
About the Role
A senior leadership role within Refresco Beverages UK, leading a team of 30 people across food compliance, food technical and food operations and reporting direct to the Managing Director. In addition you will have strong dotted line reports to the Commercial Director (New Product Development & Food Innovation) and the Manufacturing Director (Operational Food Quality). Your team will cover approximately 850 SKU's, 30 production lines across 4 factories, on site laboratories and warehouses.
The main purpose of this role is to lead the food technical function, ensuring that it maintains a high degree of customer focus and that it represents the face of manufacturing and commercial in all food technical and food quality related matters, and to build the profile of the Refresco UK business with our senior customer technical contacts and across the UK soft drinks industry. A practical knowledge of new product development and food innovation is also essential.
You will also develop and improve the business technical and quality performance matrices through effective management of the quality management system and the innovation pipeline via the product development teams. Critically this is a customer facing role and as such you will need to ensure all products are manufactured in-line with customer standards and food safety legislation. You will be a leadership role model and a high profile contributing member of the Refresco Beverages UK leadership team in particular Manufacturing and Commercial.
The main areas of responsibility for this role are: Customer liaison Product development, innovation and commercialization Quality assurance and control Compliance control Microbiology Cleaning Operations Documentation Leadership of technical team Traceability control Performance reporting Budget ownership Best practice and cost reduction Your KPI's are: Year on year Health & Safety performance of the technical function and regulatory compliance; Positive customer feedback, via trials, issues, audits, visits etc; Regular 'top-to-top' technical meetings with key stakeholders across the customer base; New Products and innovations launched on time, in full and to budget; Year on year reduction in quality defects and customer complaints; Reduction in NCRs; Zero regrettable turn-over from technical team; All financial targets and budgets are achieved.
About You
You will be an experienced senior food technical manager having lead medium to large sized teams in a food technical function in the food and drinks manufacturing industry sector. Your knowledge of health & safety and food safety and hygiene requirements and legislation goes without saying but Refresco is a complex business and in addition you will need to have experience of multiple SKU's, product change overs, packaging variants and multiple production lines and experience of leading product launch teams, audits and meeting regulatory and legal requirements. Our current technical team is very experienced and knowledgeable and will require a leader who is similar and able to motivate and drive the existing team to greater success with a situational leadership style. Most importantly you will be commercially savvy having worked with the big UK retailers at a technically senior level with a track record of having worked alongside commercial teams to win the right business. Finally this is a role that could also, in time, encompass the areas of new product development and food innovation and the ideal candidate will also have experience of these areas, having brought to market successful products both within retail and brand spaces.
About Us
Refresco is the leading European bottler of soft drinks and fruit juices for retailers and branded customers with production in Benelux, France, Germany, Iberia, Italy, the UK, Poland and Finland. In 2015 the company realized full year volumes and revenue of circa 6.1 billion litres and circa EUR 2.0 billion, respectively. Refresco offers an extensive range of product and packaging combinations from 100% fruit juices to carbonated soft drinks and mineral waters in carton, PET, Aseptic PET, cans and glass. Focused on innovation, Refresco continuously searches for new and alternative ways to improve the quality of its product and packaging combinations in line with consumer and customer demand, environmental responsibilities and market demand. Refresco is headquartered in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and employs circa 4,100 staff. Refresco Beverages UK based Bridgwater , Somerset, employs 850 people and we run four factories producing circa 700 million litres per annum, our target is a billion litres by the end of 2018, and we are well on target to achieve this goal. We work with all the leading UK retailers including Tesco, ASDA, Morrison's and Sainsbury to produce their private labels and with branded customers such as Innocent, Ocean Spray and Um Bongo. Refresco floated publicly on the Euronext stock exchange in March 2015. In July 2016 we announced the acquisition of Whitlock Packaging in the US, our first foray in to the US drinks market, adding 900 million litres of drinks per annum to our production.
Remuneration
Competitive salary plus attractive bonus , company pension, company car allowance and family health care.
About the Role
A senior leadership role within Refresco Beverages UK, leading a team of 30 people across food compliance, food technical and food operations and reporting direct to the Managing Director. In addition you will have strong dotted line reports to the Commercial Director (New Product Development & Food Innovation) and the Manufacturing Director (Operational Food Quality). Your team will cover approximately 850 SKU's, 30 production lines across 4 factories, on site laboratories and warehouses.
The main purpose of this role is to lead the food technical function, ensuring that it maintains a high degree of customer focus and that it represents the face of manufacturing and commercial in all food technical and food quality related matters, and to build the profile of the Refresco UK business with our senior customer technical contacts and across the UK soft drinks industry. A practical knowledge of new product development and food innovation is also essential.
You will also develop and improve the business technical and quality performance matrices through effective management of the quality management system and the innovation pipeline via the product development teams. Critically this is a customer facing role and as such you will need to ensure all products are manufactured in-line with customer standards and food safety legislation. You will be a leadership role model and a high profile contributing member of the Refresco Beverages UK leadership team in particular Manufacturing and Commercial.
The main areas of responsibility for this role are: Customer liaison Product development, innovation and commercialization Quality assurance and control Compliance control Microbiology Cleaning Operations Documentation Leadership of technical team Traceability control Performance reporting Budget ownership Best practice and cost reduction Your KPI's are: Year on year Health & Safety performance of the technical function and regulatory compliance; Positive customer feedback, via trials, issues, audits, visits etc; Regular 'top-to-top' technical meetings with key stakeholders across the customer base; New Products and innovations launched on time, in full and to budget; Year on year reduction in quality defects and customer complaints; Reduction in NCRs; Zero regrettable turn-over from technical team; All financial targets and budgets are achieved.
About You
You will be an experienced senior food technical manager having lead medium to large sized teams in a food technical function in the food and drinks manufacturing industry sector. Your knowledge of health & safety and food safety and hygiene requirements and legislation goes without saying but Refresco is a complex business and in addition you will need to have experience of multiple SKU's, product change overs, packaging variants and multiple production lines and experience of leading product launch teams, audits and meeting regulatory and legal requirements. Our current technical team is very experienced and knowledgeable and will require a leader who is similar and able to motivate and drive the existing team to greater success with a situational leadership style. Most importantly you will be commercially savvy having worked with the big UK retailers at a technically senior level with a track record of having worked alongside commercial teams to win the right business. Finally this is a role that could also, in time, encompass the areas of new product development and food innovation and the ideal candidate will also have experience of these areas, having brought to market successful products both within retail and brand spaces.
About Us
Refresco is the leading European bottler of soft drinks and fruit juices for retailers and branded customers with production in Benelux, France, Germany, Iberia, Italy, the UK, Poland and Finland. In 2015 the company realized full year volumes and revenue of circa 6.1 billion litres and circa EUR 2.0 billion, respectively. Refresco offers an extensive range of product and packaging combinations from 100% fruit juices to carbonated soft drinks and mineral waters in carton, PET, Aseptic PET, cans and glass. Focused on innovation, Refresco continuously searches for new and alternative ways to improve the quality of its product and packaging combinations in line with consumer and customer demand, environmental responsibilities and market demand. Refresco is headquartered in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and employs circa 4,100 staff. Refresco Beverages UK based Bridgwater , Somerset, employs 850 people and we run four factories producing circa 700 million litres per annum, our target is a billion litres by the end of 2018, and we are well on target to achieve this goal. We work with all the leading UK retailers including Tesco, ASDA, Morrison's and Sainsbury to produce their private labels and with branded customers such as Innocent, Ocean Spray and Um Bongo. Refresco floated publicly on the Euronext stock exchange in March 2015. In July 2016 we announced the acquisition of Whitlock Packaging in the US, our first foray in to the US drinks market, adding 900 million litres of drinks per annum to our production.
Remuneration
Competitive salary plus attractive bonus , company pension, company car allowance and family health care.