Senior Manager, Produce Quality

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United States.

📋 Description

• Act as the technical expert on produce quality, specification management, and supplier execution.

• Develop and sustain relationships with growers and shippers to ensure adherence to quality standards, shelf-life requirements, and necessary corrective measures.

• Serve as the main escalation point for quality-related disputes and promote continuous improvement in supplier performance.

• Create, maintain, and enhance specifications for bulk and co-manufactured produce.

• Establish temporary specifications during fluctuating market conditions and oversee specification interpretation and compliance.

• Offer technical advice on assortment choices, supplier capabilities, inbound delivery schedules, truck temperatures, fulfillment center turnaround days, and seasonal changes.

• Formulate produce quality guidelines and operational restrictions while identifying and addressing quality and supply risks.

• Lead the inspection, grading, and defect identification of produce in alignment with USDA standards and PACA regulations.

• Act as the primary liaison with the USDA to ensure inspection readiness and adherence to regulations.

• Train and mentor inbound quality teams across fulfillment centers on standardized inspection, grading, defect identification, and communication methods.

• Analyze quality trends, pinpoint systemic enhancements, decrease defect rates, and report performance, risks, and recommendations to stakeholders and senior leadership.

• Oversee in-house retain testing and other quality assurance initiatives.

⛳️ Requirements

• 5–10 years of experience in produce inspection or quality, with extensive knowledge of USDA grading standards, PACA regulations, and fresh commodity quality assessment.

• Practical experience in inspecting, grading, and assessing quality across a diverse range of fresh produce commodities.

• Strong understanding of growing regions, seasonal changes, weather effects, storage crops, and dynamics of the produce supply chain.

• Proven ability to establish and manage relationships with suppliers, including growers, shippers, or produce vendors.

• Familiarity with Claude or similar AI tools for job-related tasks, such as metric evaluation.

• Demonstrated experience in developing, maintaining, and governing produce specifications in a retail, foodservice, or direct-to-consumer setting.

• Experience supporting quality operations across various distribution centers, fulfillment centers, or field locations.

• Proven success in leading supplier corrective action programs, quality investigations, and managing supplier performance.

• Experience in training, developing, and standardizing quality practices among distributed operational teams.

• Exceptional communication skills, capable of conveying produce quality, operational risks, and recommendations to both field teams and executive leadership.

• Ability to work autonomously in a remote setting and travel approximately 30–40% for supplier visits, fulfillment center training, and field assessments.

• Must not require employer-sponsored work visa.

🏝️ Benefits

• Remote-first: work from home, our NYC office, or anywhere in the U.S. - the choice is yours!

• Equity

• Unlimited vacation policy

• Universal paid parental leave

• Monthly Hungryroot credit for delicious, healthy groceries

• Comprehensive health, vision, dental, and life insurance

• 401k with Company Match

• A work from home stipend to assist with your initial home-office setup

• Annual company retreat

• Regular virtual team events