Quality & Food Safety Manager (Contract → Full-Time)

About Frutero

At Frutero, we are Fruit Hunters on a mission to find the world’s best-tasting tropical fruit. Founded in 2020, we make premium ice cream pints, bars, and bites with real tropical fruit and clean ingredients. Inspired by the rich, fruit-forward ice creams enjoyed across the tropics, our products are distributed nationally through leading retailers. We are bringing on dedicated quality leadership to support our rapid growth.

The Role

We are hiring an on-site Quality & Food Safety Manager to be Frutero's eyes and authority at the production facility during every Frutero run. You will be the senior quality voice on the floor - verifying food safety practices, confirming product quality against spec, observing operations and throughput, and more. You will have hold and release authority on Frutero finished goods.

The plant runs six days a week, up to 20 hours a day. Your visits will be variable in timing - early shift, late shift, weekends - to ensure observations across all production conditions. This is a floor presence role for someone who has done quality the right way at a real manufacturing site and is comfortable enforcing standards.

What You'll Do

• Verify food safety on the floor. Be present during production to confirm that food safety programs are being executed as designed - not just documented as designed. This includes pre-operational verification, allergen changeover and line clearance, CCP monitoring, environmental monitoring, sanitation, and GMP compliance.
• Verify product quality against spec. Confirm that finished Frutero product meets every parameter on our specifications - weight, overrun, wrapper integrity, lot coding, pack-out, and pallet build. Pull samples for third-party lab testing and ensure cold chain integrity through to the lab. Make hold-or-release decisions on Frutero finished goods.
• Audit operations and throughput. Watch how the plant actually runs. Track production rates against target, monitor yield and ingredient loss, and observe staffing, training, schedule adherence, and equipment performance. Flag operational issues that put quality, food safety, or delivery commitments at risk.
• Report directly to Frutero leadership. Send a daily summary at the end of each production day and a weekly written report covering open issues, trends, and corrective actions. Audit recordkeeping for completeness - pre-op logs, allergen and CCP records, COAs, training, EMP, pest control. Own the corrective action tracker and drive open items to closure.

What You Bring

Required:

• Comfortable operating with authority inside a plant where you are not the employer
• Ability to be onsite at Kennett Square, PA on a variable schedule including early shifts, evening shifts, and occasional weekends

Strongly preferred:

• 5+ years of food manufacturing quality experience, with demonstrated time in a Quality Manager or equivalent role
• PCQI certification
• SQF Practitioner certification
• HACCP team experience
• Demonstrated experience holding or rejecting product against specification
• Strong working knowledge of FSMA, FDCA, and SQF Edition 9 requirements
• Experience in dairy, frozen, or other temperature-controlled food manufacturing
• Experience in co-packer, 3PL, or contract manufacturing oversight
• Experience meeting customer requirements

Engagement

This is a part-time, contracted position with the potential to transition into a full-time role. Approximately 25 hours per week onsite, with conversion to a full-time salaried role with benefits after 90 days if both sides want to convert. Compensation is competitive and commensurate with experience.

Start date is immediate.

How to Apply

Email [email protected] with your resume and a short note covering:

• Your most recent role overseeing food manufacturing quality
• The toughest call you've made in your QA career, and what was the outcome
• Your earliest possible start date

Pay: $50,248.28 - $80,000.00 per year

Application Question(s):

• Are you able to work onsite at our facility in Kennett Square, PA on a variable schedule including occasional early shifts, late shifts, and weekends?
• How many years of food manufacturing quality experience do you have?
• Do you hold a current PCQI certification?
• Do you hold a current SQF Practitioner certification?

Work Location: In person