Food Safety Technician - Ripon

An industry leader, The Wine Group is one of the world’s foremost producers of award-winning wines across more than 60 wine brands and many winery facilities in California, New York, and Australia. Headquartered in Livermore, California, TWG is an industry innovator when it comes to developing, marketing, and selling wine brands beloved by consumers around the world, including Cupcake, Franzia, Benziger, Imagery, Tribute, 7 Deadly, Cooper & Thief, The Dreaming Tree, Charles Smith Wines, and more. The Wine Group believes in producing wine using sustainable and earth-friendly practices to foster healthy land and agriculture for generations to come. The company demonstrates environmental stewardship through its commitment to clean energy and by ensuring that all its owned vineyards are certified sustainable or biodynamic. To learn more, please visit: www.thewinegroup.com.

JOB SUMMARY

This specialized Food Safety Technician position will perform routine and non-routine internal audits within The Wine Group to support and grow TWG’s Food Safety Management System. Responsibilities will include planning food safety management activities, conducting audits, writing reports, and support corrective action plans from food safety activities. All these functions will require collaboration with different departments and occasionally different TWG sites to support broader business goals.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS

All Quality Service Employees

• Actively commit to and participate in our lab and corporate safety programs, including following all safety protocols and procedures. Learning to recognize and report hazards and take appropriate action to keep yourself and others safe. Participate in safety programs and activities, including delivering safety trainings on a variety of topics.
• Effectively communicate and collaborate with colleagues, within the team, the facility and across all functional areas the lab interacts with.
• Perform process audits, compliance verification and or package quality assessments.
• Assist in identifying and resolving issues and/or taking appropriate action on sanitation issues and non-conforming product or material issues as directed. Timing is critical and must be managed to ensure responsibilities are performed in a timely manner. Capture clear, concise, accurate data and information. Seek input as appropriate.
• Support and participate in TWG’s company values of; Be a Steward, See Possibility, Find a Way and Stay Grounded.
• Support and participate in TWG’s Food Safety Culture to help with training, communication, employee feedback and participation, and performance measurement of the Food Safety Management System.

Specialized Responsibilities for Food Safety Technician

• Audit Lead
  • Participate and conduct weekly/monthly audits across Ripon departments.
  • Send reports and enter tracking data on spreadsheets.
  • Contribute to continual improvement of audit questions, tracking, and follow-up items.
  • Become a TWG expert for Safety Culture Application to provide support across TWG sites for using the application.

• Multi-site Internal Auditor Lead
  • Travel with Food Safety Manager to different TWG sites to conduct Formal Internal. Audits to ensure conformance to both FSSC 22000 and HACCP certifications
  • Contribute to report writing.
  • Be a supporting trainer for additional Internal Audit Team members across TWG.

Food Safety Team Member and Deputy HACCP Coordinator

• Provide back-up support for when the Food Safety Manager is off-site by contributing to the following tasks, under the Food Safety Manager’s guidance:
  • Set up and Lead Ripon Food Safety Team Meetings.
  • Take responsibility for meeting minutes and recording follow-up items.
• Contribute to the overall TWG Food Safety Management System’s continual improvement to support FSSC 22000 and HACCP Certifications.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Must be 21 or older at the time of hire.
• Bachelor's degree in a Natural Science discipline (Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Material Sciences, Physics, Astronomy, Earth Sciences) OR Food Science.
• Experience with internal auditing preferred.
• Experience working in a regulatory environment.
• Experience in any food safety management system. HACCP and FSSC 22000 preferred.
• Computer skill requirements include basic MS Outlook, Word, and Excel.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS

• Must be able to frequently lift and carry weights of up to 50 pounds at varying frequencies.
• Possess the ability to work in a fast-paced production environment.
• Working environment is both indoors and outdoors, with exposure to related equipment and noise levels.
• Ability to perform tasks requiring bending, stooping, standing, and twisting in the production environment.
• Must be able to repeatedly climb 20 feet tank stairs/vertical tank ladders.
• Ability to travel between facilities, up to 30%.

COMPENSATION

• Hourly Pay Range Posted: $25.29 - $37.88/hr.
• Actual compensation will be based on factors such as experience; skills, knowledge, and abilities; education; and other position related factors.

At The Wine Group, we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, disability, protected veteran status or other characteristic protected by law.

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NOTICE TO THIRD PARTY AGENCIES

Please note that we do not accept unsolicited resumes from recruiters or employment agencies. In the absence of a signed Recruitment Services Agreement, we will not consider, or agree to, payment of any referral compensation or recruiter fee. In the event that a recruiter or agency submits a resume or candidate without a previously signed agreement, we explicitly reserve the right to pursue and hire those candidate(s) without any financial obligation to the recruiter or agency.