FOOD & MICROBIOLOGY MANAGER
Unilever
- Colworth, West Sussex
- Permanent
- Full-time
- Act as microbiology first point of contact in the provision of microbiological expertise for R&D product developers, quality and supply chain support (e.g HACCP, root cause analyses).
- Line management and mentoring of microbiology team members.
- Ensure end-to-end quality in microbiology science-based support, including (statistical) data analysis and visualization, interpretation & presentation, and reporting to relevant stakeholders.
- Lead microbiological risk assessments to establish the basis for microbiological safety & stability of new product and process designs.
- Identify and adapt new methodologies/process/procedures enabling continuous future fit microbiological data science.
- Develop novel insights and solutions in the area of food preservation systems (e.g. hurdle-technology, natural antimicrobials, setting shelf-life etc.).
- Provide technical expertise in the design of microbiological experiments for innovation support and ensure robustness of the data.
- Lead technical input for relevant good manufacturing documents and training materials to ensure maintenance of product & process design knowledge.
- Ideally MSc or higher in relevant subject (e.g. Food Microbiology, Food Safety, Food Science & Technology – with focus on microbiology).
- Proven experience (relevant years) in applied/industry microbiology roles (ideally in the food sector), including leading projects and managing teams.
- Good influencing and communication skills (fluent English written and verbal); ability to convince and defend own agenda in front of internal and external stakeholders (e.g. R&D, Supply Chain, Quality, 3rd parties, co-packers).
- Ability to use technical judgment to lead team activities and programme direction, preferably experience in line management.
- Team player with flexible “we can” attitude, yet, ability to work agile and independently.