Our client is a leading, large-scale horticultural business with integrated operations across farming, advanced packing facilities, cold storage, and domestic and export distribution. With a diverse multi-season operating footprint, the business is focused on operational excellence, sustainable produce supply, and continued growth.
The Opportunity
Reporting directly to the General Manager of Supply Chain, this newly created leadership position is based in Northern Victoria and plays a pivotal role in providing independent oversight of quality standards and quality assurance systems across the organisation’s national horticultural operations.
Covering multiple categories and production regions, the Quality Manager will own the quality framework from farm through to customer delivery, ensuring consistency in assessment standards, grading accuracy, food safety compliance, and quality data integrity. This role will operate across all stages of the value chain, including farming, harvest, cold storage, packing, dispatch, and third-party grower programs.
Key responsibilities include:
- Owning and maintaining quality specifications, grading standards, assessment methodologies, and defect classification frameworks across commodities, varieties, customers, and markets.
- Establishing and governing a consistent quality assurance system across multiple growing, storage and packing operations, ensuring reliable and defensible quality outcomes.
- Defining and auditing quality controls throughout harvest, transport, cold storage, pre-sizing, packing, and dispatch operations.
- Developing robust quality-loss attribution processes that accurately track grade movement and identify root causes throughout the supply chain.
- Managing third-party grower assessment programs, dispute resolution processes, and quality compliance requirements.
- Overseeing food safety, certification, market access compliance, customer claims investigations, corrective action programs, and continuous improvement initiatives.
- Building quality assurance reporting and data governance frameworks that provide meaningful operational insights and support commercial and supply chain decision making.
The successful candidate will be a technically strong and highly credible quality professional who combines scientific rigour, operational experience, and commercial awareness. You will be comfortable influencing stakeholders at all levels and capable of making independent decisions in situations where competing priorities exist.
To be successful in this role, you will bring:
- A tertiary qualification in Food Science, Food Technology, Horticulture, Agricultural Science, or a related discipline.
- A minimum of eight years' experience in quality assurance or quality management within fresh produce, horticulture, food manufacturing, or other quality-sensitive production environment.
- Demonstrated experience managing quality systems across multiple sites, products or operational locations.
- Strong expertise in specification management, grading standards, defect classification, food safety systems and quality auditing.
- Experience working with external certification bodies, regulatory frameworks and customer quality requirements.
- Proven capability designing and delivering competency-based quality training programs within operational environments.
- Strong analytical and reporting skills, with the ability to interpret quality data, identify trends, and support evidence-based decision making.
- Exceptional stakeholder engagement skills with the ability to influence and drive compliance outcomes without direct reporting authority.
- The flexibility and willingness to travel regularly across multiple growing and packing locations within Australia.
This is a unique opportunity to establish and lead a best-practice quality function within one of Australia's agriculture businesses.
For a confidential discussion, contact Charles MacCallum on 1300 380 701. Applications can be submitted via www.rimfireresources.com.au.
