Plant Manager – Food Manufacturing

Location: Jacksonville, Fl 
Employment Type: Full-Time | On-Site

We are seeking an experienced Plant Manager to lead the day-to-day operations of a high-volume food manufacturing facility. This position is responsible for driving production performance, safety, quality, employee development, and continuous improvement while ensuring the facility meets customer, regulatory, and company standards.

The ideal candidate is a hands-on manufacturing leader who can manage through supervisors and frontline teams, improve plant performance, and create a strong culture of accountability, safety, quality, and operational excellence.

Responsibilities

• Provide overall leadership for plant operations, including production, packaging, maintenance, sanitation, warehouse, and related functions

• Lead, coach, and develop supervisors and production teams

• Ensure production goals are achieved while maintaining quality, safety, and cost standards

• Monitor plant KPIs including production output, labor, efficiency, downtime, waste, yield, and quality

• Identify operational issues and implement corrective actions and process improvements

• Partner with Quality and Food Safety teams to maintain compliance with applicable regulatory and customer requirements

• Support and enforce GMP, HACCP, sanitation, food safety, and workplace safety standards

• Ensure equipment, staffing, materials, and production schedules are aligned with customer demand

• Work closely with Maintenance to minimize downtime and improve equipment reliability

• Manage labor utilization, overtime, productivity, and overall plant operating costs

• Develop and implement SOPs, performance expectations, and continuous improvement initiatives

• Participate in audits, inspections, corrective actions, and regulatory compliance activities

• Promote a positive work environment focused on communication, accountability, and employee development

• Collaborate with senior leadership, supply chain, quality, maintenance, HR, and other departments

Qualifications

• 5+ years of progressive manufacturing leadership experience

• Previous experience managing a plant, production operation, or large manufacturing department strongly preferred

• Food, meat, beverage, consumer packaged goods, or other regulated manufacturing experience preferred

• Experience leading supervisors and hourly production employees

• Strong understanding of production planning, labor management, KPIs, efficiency, and continuous improvement

• Knowledge of GMP, HACCP, food safety, sanitation, and OSHA/safety practices

• Experience working in a fast-paced, high-volume manufacturing environment

• Strong leadership, communication, problem-solving, and decision-making skills

• Ability to hold teams accountable while maintaining a positive and professional leadership style

• Bachelor’s degree preferred; equivalent manufacturing leadership experience will be considered

Preferred Experience

• USDA-regulated food or meat manufacturing

• SQF or other food safety certification environments

• Lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, 5S, or continuous improvement programs

• ERP, MRP, WMS, or manufacturing production systems

• Budgeting, labor planning, and cost control

What We’re Looking For

We are looking for a leader who is comfortable being visible on the production floor, understands how to manage people and performance, and can balance production demands with quality, safety, employee engagement, and customer expectations.

This is an excellent opportunity for an experienced manufacturing professional who wants to take ownership of plant performance and help drive operational improvements across the facility.

Ascendo is a certified minority owned staffing firm, and we welcome and celebrate diversity. Ascendo is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy and gender identity), national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, genetic information, age, parental status, military service or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law.

Contact information

Amy Smith