Specifications Technologist in UK

Are you passionate about food?

Would you like to join a fresh, passionate and dynamic Technical/ Quality team?

Would you like to be part of an exciting future for a constantly growing and well established company?

If yes, then we would like to hear from you.

At Solina, our community of over 3,900 people share a passion for food and live our entrepreneurial culture. We design customised savoury solutions for our clients operating in the food industry, food service, butchery and nutrition markets. With sustainability at the heart of our business model, we aim to produce food that is good in every sense of the word: delicious, nourishing, affordable, sustainable and convenient.

Solina is a fast growing business, with 41 production sites and R&D laboratory, we are present in more than 18 countries mainly in Europe and North America. By constantly rethinking culinary solutions, we make food matter for people and the planet.

Essential Cuisine, part of Solina Group are looking for an experienced Specification Technologist to join our dynamic Quality team. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in food safety, supplier relations, and auditing, with at least 2 years experience in a similar role. This position is crucial for maintaining and enhancing the quality and safety of our products by ensuring our suppliers meet our rigorous standards.

Key Responsibilities

Supplier & Raw Material Management

• Liaise with Technical (R&D/ NPD/ Quality) and procurement/ planning teams regarding new and potential suppliers/ raw materials, based on validation and verification methods.
• Completion of raw material risk assessments including food safety, threats, vulnerability and integrity.
• Monitoring supplier and raw material compliance for all brand integrity product claims and accreditation.
• Completion of packaging risk assessments, including food contact and claims.
• Control and review supply chain information and legislation.
• Manage and handle supplier Non-Conformances, to include the escalation and logging of NC reports.

Customer Specification Completion

• Complete, monitor and control customer specifications.
• Completion of customer chains of custody/ supply chain maps.
• Review and update of all finished product specifications against risk assessments.
• Support with completion of Customer ‘Supplier Approval Questionnaires’ (SAQ’s).
• Attend pre & post trial meetings for new product development launches, including support on ‘Quality Attribute Sheets’ (QAS) to enable benchmarking of standards from customer to production.
• Respond and support with general customer enquiries.

Artwork Approval

• Generation of pack copy info for generation of brand artwork and web page finished product content.
• Review and support approval of all printed artwork and web page content, with enabling technical expertise around legislation and regulations.

Other Duties

• Be part of the site Internal Audit team, to support with completing audits against a schedule.
• Supporting the wider teams with Technical support, to include Quality, Production & NPD.
• Support with site GMP audits, based around compliance for acceptable H&S, Food Safety and general housekeeping and hygiene expectations.
• Support and be involved with QC lab taste panels against QAS.
• Support with operational investigations and root cause analysis to enable site continuous improvement.
• Attendance of any relative Quality/ Production meetings, where needed.
• Any other projects / duties deemed fit by the Site Quality Manager.

Essential Skills and Experience

• Ideally have knowledge/ experience of supplier approval, raw materials, technical specifications and risk assessments within a food manufacturing environment.
• A basic understanding of food legislations and regulations.
• Good standards of numeracy and literacy.
• Computer literate, particularly around excel (spreadsheets), word & outlook.
• Ability to work independently and communicate effectively with all levels of management

If you have the skills and dedication to excel in this role we would love to hear from you.

Not interested in agency/ recruitment