Director of Quality & Food Safety

Director of Quality & Food Safety | National Food Packaging Distributor & Custom Manufacturer | ONSITE in Bloomingdale, IL Area

A well-established national distributor and custom manufacturer of flexible food packaging materials is seeking a Director of Quality & Food Safety to lead quality, food safety, regulatory compliance, and supplier quality across the organization. This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who understands the intersection of food safety and food-contact packaging and can own the systems, standards, certifications, and processes necessary to ensure product quality and regulatory compliance.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead and continuously improve company-wide quality management and food safety programs.
• Maintain ISO 9001 or comparable QMS standards and ensure ongoing audit and certification readiness.
• Lead food safety programs including HACCP, GMPs, traceability, product hold/release, and third-party audits.
• Ensure compliance with applicable FDA food-contact packaging requirements and 21 CFR regulations.
• Own CAPA, root-cause analysis, nonconformance, corrective/preventive actions, and change control.
• Lead investigation and resolution of customer quality complaints, recurring defects, and product issues.
• Manage supplier quality, including supplier qualification, documentation, corrective actions, and ongoing performance.
• Establish and maintain product specifications, quality standards, inspection requirements, and testing criteria.
• Partner with Operations, Supply Chain, Purchasing, Sales, suppliers, and customers on quality and food safety matters.
• Lead, coach, and develop the QA team of four direct reports while building a strong culture of quality, accountability, and continuous improvement.

What We’re Looking For:

• 10+ years of progressive Quality, Food Safety, or Quality Systems experience, including leadership responsibility.
• Experience within food packaging, flexible packaging, food manufacturing, or a closely related regulated environment.
• Candidates coming from food manufacturing must have direct responsibility for the quality and food safety of packaging materials used in food products.
• Strong hands-on experience with QMS, ISO 9001, HACCP/GMP, audits, CAPA, root-cause analysis, and supplier quality.
• Working knowledge of FDA food-contact packaging requirements and applicable regulatory documentation.
• Experience with flexible packaging, films, paper packaging, labels, printing, laminating, converting, or similar packaging materials is highly preferred.
• Strong leadership, communication, problem-solving, and cross-functional collaboration skills.

Ideal Candidate:

The ideal candidate is a hands-on quality and food safety leader who understands food-contact packaging either from a food packaging organization or from a food manufacturer where they have directly managed packaging quality, supplier compliance, food safety requirements, audits, and regulatory standards. This person should be comfortable owning the entire quality function, not simply supporting testing, inspections, or documentation.