Divisional Technical Director; Chilled Food Industry

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Divisional Technical Director – Quality & Compliance (Chilled Food Manufacturing)

UK | Multi-site | Chilled Food Manufacturing

We are seeking an exceptional Divisional Technical Director to join one of the UK’s fastest-growing, UK chilled food manufacturing businesses. This is a pivotal technical leadership role within a complex, multi-site operation, offering the opportunity to drive technical excellence, safeguard brand integrity and influence the future direction of a rapidly scaling organisation.

As a senior member of the Group Technical Leadership Team, you will provide leadership, governance and assurance across your division, ensuring factory technical compliance is consistently achieved and continuously improved. You will set the benchmark for food safety, quality, legality and integrity—exceeding our customers' expectations while enabling operational performance and commercial success.

As Divisional Technical Director, you will:

• Act as the senior authority for factory technical compliance across your division, ensuring the highest standards of food safety, quality, legality and integrity.
• Represent the business with credibility and confidence at senior retailer and customer forums, leading audits, visits and regulatory engagement.
• Lead, inspire and develop our Site Heads of Technical and their team’s, driving a culture of accountability, continuous improvement and operational excellence.
• Translate the Group Technical Strategy into clear, actionable site-level plans aligned to customer, operational and commercial priorities.
• Build strong cross-functional partnerships across Operations, Commercial, NPD and Supply Chain to deliver improvement initiatives across manufacturing sites.
• Use data, insight and KPIs to monitor performance, identify risk and proactively drive continuous improvement across the division.
• Develop and strengthen joint customer quality and compliance plans, reinforcing trust and long-term partnerships.
• Maintain strong audit performance and accreditation outcomes, ensuring sites remain audit‑ready at all times.
• Act as a trusted subject matter expert, providing leadership, challenging for better and finding solutions on complex technical and food safety matters.
• Champion technical innovation projects that deliver tangible improvements in compliance, efficiency and operational performance.

You will be a proven senior technical leader with the credibility, experience and influence to operate at a Divisional Director level within a high‑performing chilled food manufacturing environment.

• Degree-qualified (or equivalent) in a food-related discipline, with deep food science and technical expertise.
• Strong knowledge of food safety frameworks including HACCP (Level 3/4), Food Safety (Level 3/4) and TACCP / Product Integrity.
• Comprehensive understanding of UK and European food legislation, retailer Codes of Practice and BRC Global Standards.
• Strong knowledge of quality management systems, chilled production factory compliance and audit governance.
• Commercial and operational understanding, with the ability to align technical strategy to business performance.

• Highly developed technical leadership capability, able to set direction, influence senior stakeholders and challenge constructively.
• Excellent communication and negotiation skills, operating confidently in complex, high‑pressure environments.
• Proven people leadership skills, including the ability to develop large technical teams and future leaders.
• Strong analytical and problem‑solving skills, using data to drive performance and improvement.
• Exceptional stakeholder management capability, building trust with customers, regulators and internal partners.

• Proven track record in senior technical or quality leadership roles within FMCG, ideally chilled foods.
• Extensive experience working with key UK retailers, customer and certification audits.
• Experience managing technical compliance across multi‑site or group‑level operations.
• Demonstrated crisis management experience, leading effective technical response and resolution.
• Strong track record of shaping and delivering technical strategy and driving…