Supplier Compliance Manager

A new opportunity with an established UK food business, working directly with a number of major national retailers.
As part of continued investment in their technical and quality function, they are looking to appoint an experienced supplier assurance and compliance professional to join their team.
This is a fantastic opportunity for someone with a strong background in supplier quality and compliance to take on a role with genuine retailer exposure, real influence over supplier standards and retailer relationships.

About the Role
This role brings together supplier quality and retailer account management - you'll be the glue between the business, its customers and its suppliers. You'll be responsible for managing supplier compliance across a varied supply base as well as direct relationships, ensuring standards are consistently met across ethical, quality and food safety requirements. You'll represent the business directly with major retail accounts, including regular review meetings, and will be hands-on in auditing, gap analysis and driving improvement plans with suppliers when standards slip.

Key responsibilities include

Building strong, trust-based relationships with suppliers, agents and brokers
Conducting supplier audits (including ethical/social compliance audits) and managing corrective action through to resolution
Acting as the key point of contact for major retail accounts, representing the business in regular customer meetings
Balancing commercial priorities with quality and compliance requirements, working closely with commercial and technical teams
Regular travel, primarily across Europe, to visit and audit suppliers
About You
Solid experience in supplier quality, compliance or technical management within the food industry
Confident conducting and being on the receiving end of audits - comfortable as both auditor and auditee
A relationship-first approach to supplier management, with the ability to influence without always relying on a hard compliance line
Comfortable representing a business directly with major retail customers
Willing and able to travel regularly, including multi-day trips in Europe
As you know over here at Zest we like to do things properly and always want to keep you, the candidate in the loop.

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