Role Purpose
To supervise quality assurance and food safety controls from receipt of nuts and ingredients through roasting, cooling, seasoning, packing and finished product release. The Quality Supervisor protects consumers and the business by verifying process conformance, controlling nonconforming product, maintaining traceability and ensuring that quality decisions are timely, evidence based and independent.
Key Responsibilities
Quality Planning and Shift Supervision
Translate the quality control plan into clear shift inspection, sampling, testing and verification activities and assign work to quality personnel.
Review production plans, product specifications, approved recipes, packaging requirements and known risks before each shift or product change.
Confirm that required instruments, standards, forms, sampling materials and trained personnel are available and fit for use.
Provide timely quality decisions to Production while maintaining independent judgement and escalating unresolved or high risk issues.
Complete structured shift handovers covering product status, pending results, deviations, holds, corrective actions and priority risks
Incoming Materials and Supplier Quality
Verify incoming nuts, ingredients and packaging materials against approved specifications, sampling plans and supplier documentation before acceptance or use.
Coordinate or perform checks for identity, condition, infestation, foreign material, damage, moisture, sensory quality, packaging integrity and other defined requirements.
Coordinate aflatoxin, microbiological, chemical or other risk based testing through approved internal or external laboratories where required.
Place nonconforming materials on hold, maintain clear status identification and support supplier complaints, investigations and corrective actions.
Monitor storage conditions, stock rotation, allergen segregation and protection of quality status in raw material and packaging stores.
Nut Roasting and In Process Quality Control
Verify approved roast profiles and in process controls for commercial nut roasting, including temperature zones, airflow, feed rate, residence time, bed depth and cooling conditions.
Approve line start up and first off samples only when roast colour, aroma, flavour, texture, moisture and other specified attributes conform.
Monitor roasting performance at the required frequency and identify under roasting, over roasting, scorching, uneven roast, excessive breakage, rancidity indicators or contamination.
Confirm that process limits identified as a critical control point or operational prerequisite are monitored, recorded and acted upon in accordance with the food safety plan.
Assess process deviations promptly, define affected product boundaries using traceability records and recommend hold, rework, release or disposal through authorised procedures.
Packaging and Finished Product Assurance
Verify line clearance, correct product and film, label approval, batch coding, date coding, legal declarations and allergen information before packing starts.
Monitor fill weight, pack appearance, seal integrity, leak performance, gas flush where applicable, checkweigher function, metal detection and reject control.
Review finished product sampling and test results against specification and confirm that all manufacturing and quality records are complete before release recommendation.
Control retention samples, reference standards and product samples in a manner that preserves identity, condition and retrieval.
Investigate customer complaints, returns and recurring defects, determine root causes and verify effective corrective and preventive action.
Food Safety System, Hygiene and Compliance
Monitor compliance with Good Manufacturing Practices, sanitation, personal hygiene, pest control, allergen management, glass and brittle plastic controls, chemical controls and foreign material prevention.
Conduct scheduled and unannounced GMP inspections, document findings, agree responsible owners and verify timely closure.
Support HACCP reviews, validation and verification activities, traceability tests, product withdrawal or recall exercises, internal audits, certification audits and customer audits.
Verify cleaning effectiveness through visual, allergen, microbiological or other approved methods based on risk and the sanitation programme.
Ensure measuring and testing devices are calibrated, verified, protected and removed from use when their accuracy is doubtful.
Nonconformance, Documentation and Improvement
Issue and control nonconformance reports, investigate root causes with responsible departments and verify that corrective actions address the actual cause.
Maintain accurate, legible and retrievable quality records, specifications, inspection results, laboratory results, hold logs, release records and corrective action evidence.
Analyse trends in defects, complaints, holds, supplier failures, roasting variation and audit findings and present actionable recommendations.
Train production and quality employees on product standards, sampling, testing, hygiene, allergens, traceability and quality escalation.
Protect data integrity and immediately report falsification, missing records, unexplained product movement or any attempt to bypass a quality control.
Decision Authority and Escalation
Stop production, packing or dispatch where there is a credible food safety, quality, legality, labelling or traceability risk.
Place raw materials, work in progress, finished product or packaging on hold and define the affected lot boundaries pending investigation.
Reject or recommend release, rework, downgrade or disposal in accordance with delegated authority and approved product disposition procedures.
Escalate suspected contamination, failed critical control, positive pathogen or aflatoxin result, major allergen error, traceability failure, falsified record or potential recall concern immediately.
Minimum Qualifications and Experience
Education and Training
Diploma or degree in Food Science, Food Technology, Quality Assurance, Microbiology, Chemistry or a related discipline.
Formal training in HACCP and Good Manufacturing Practices is required. Internal auditing, ISO 22000, FSSC 22000, BRCGS, allergen management or laboratory training is an added advantage.
Experience
At least three years of quality assurance or quality control experience in food manufacturing, including experience coordinating inspectors or leading shift quality activities.
Demonstrable quality control experience in commercial nut roasting is mandatory, including the assessment of roast profiles and roasted nut quality attributes.
Experience with automated packaging, metal detection, traceability, product hold and release, nonconformance investigations and audit preparation.
Knowledge, Skills and Competencies
Strong knowledge of nut quality risks, roasting process controls, allergens, contamination prevention, sampling, specifications and finished product release.
Ability to interpret technical results, identify affected product boundaries and make objective risk based decisions under time pressure.
High integrity, attention to detail, assertive communication and willingness to stop a process when standards are not met.
Practical root cause analysis, corrective action verification, trend analysis and report writing capability.
Competence in spreadsheets, quality records and basic statistical analysis, with clear written and verbal communication.