Job Title: Manager / Senior Manager - Quality

Location: Gurugram, with substantial travel to partner farms and the Karnal processing centre

Type: Permanent

Team: A distributed quality team of around twenty, across around twenty farm and processing locations

Role Details: Work from Office (6-day week with alternate Saturdays as non-working)

Context:

Eggs are nature's most complete nutrition and have the potential to solve India's nutrition gap. However, out of 40 Crore eggs consumed daily in India, more than 97% are sold in loose and unpackaged format. The Indian egg industry is largely unorganized at the backend as well as the frontend. A typical egg in India takes 8 - 10 days to reach a retail counter by the time it is not fresh and has lost nutrition values (by more than 50% as per research). With non-fresh eggs, there is a funny egg smell and runny texture of yolk and albumen, which is very common with Indian eggs. Farmers make thin margins and are dependent on unorganized traders and wholesalers. Due to low incomes and lack of knowledge, there is heavy usage of antibiotics and chemicals in poultry feed that causes long-term health issues.

The Company:

Eggoz - Nupa Technologies Pvt Ltd. Founded in 2017, Eggoz is a series-C funded egg brand and Agritech start up. It is funded by Gaja Capital, Ivy Cap, NabVentures, Avaana Capital, Rebright Partners and Others. The founders Abhishek Negi and Aditya Singh are alumni of IIT - Kharagpur.

Opportunity:

With growing demand for hygienic and branded foods, Eggoz is building a brand of eggs in a $12 Billion egg consumption market which is growing rapidly at 15% annually. Eggoz aspires to be the 'Amul of Eggs', creating a trusted national brand synonymous with freshness and nutrition. It aims to deliver superior nutrition with sustainable farming, aim at better income for farmers and strive for 24-hour freshness, thereby holistically attempting to solve the current challenges in the industry. The business model is asset-light and tech-first where farmers are onboarded to an integrated platform, which includes poultry feed & nutrition integration using only herbal ingredients, and bird management technology to improve farmer income. Eggoz is the leading and fastest growing brand of eggs. Its products are available in omni-channel across several major cities of the country. In the next phase, Eggoz aspires to become a household brand. It is looking to scale the brand and platform to the rest of the country and build the largest national brand of eggs. It aims to build excitement around eggs and build the entire category of eggs and egg-based products.

The Role:

Eggoz operates in a perishable, biologically variable and food safety - sensitive category, and works with a strong farmer network. A consumer pays a premium for Eggoz on the belief that the egg will be fresh, clean, consistent and free of antibiotics. Every one of those is a quality outcome. This role exists to raise quality performance across that chain. A critical deliverable is to take a quality operation spread across the farm and processing locations and ensure that the team catches problems at source, pursues partner farms adhere to a standard, and gives the business a strong quality cadence it can rely on.

Key Responsibilities:

- Lead the quality function

- Lead, develop and hold to account a team of around twenty across around twenty farm and processing sites, including the quality team who hold those site relationships today.

- Set the standard, the audit and visit rhythm, and the reporting discipline that keeps quality utmost priority.

- Build the capability of the team. Almost every quality failure is caught, or missed, by someone at site level.

- Quality at source - the partner farm network

1. Qualify, certify and audit partner farms, and hold them to the standard Eggoz sells on.

2. Own input variability - feed, bird health, and antibiotic and chemical use - and the residue testing that stands behind the antibiotic-free claim.

3. Work with Supply Chain and farm partners on corrective action where a site falls short, and make the correction hold.

- Quality through processing and dispatch

1. Grading accuracy, shell cleanliness, breakage and wastage, at the processing centre and at farm level.

2. Age at dispatch, and the freshness promise through to the shelf.

- Compliance and systems

1. FSSAI and all applicable regulation, together with retail and platform quality standards and audits.

2. HACCP and FSSC 22000 systems, documentation and permanent audit readiness.

3. Testing and lab protocols, developed in step with the R&D function.

- Consumer complaints and continuous improvement

1. Own complaint resolution end to end, with root cause analysis and CAPA that closes the loop rather than logging it.

2. Trace complaint themes from quick commerce, modern trade and D2C back to the site that caused them, and fix it there.

3. Drive improvement projects on breakage, grading accuracy and the overall cost of quality.

Who are we looking for:

- B.Tech / M.Tech in Food Technology, Dairy Technology, Agriculture or a related field.

- 10 - 12 years in Quality Assurance within FMCG, poultry, dairy or fresh produce

- Experience of quality at farm, vendor or third-party level

- Proven leadership of a distributed, field-based team across multiple locations.

- Strong knowledge of food safety and regulatory compliance, with a structured approach to root cause analysis and CAPA.

- Certifications: HACCP, FSSC 22000, Internal Auditor (ISO). Six Sigma an advantage.

- Strong documentation discipline

- Experience in a startup or fast-paced growth environment, with high ownership and agility.

- Periodic travel to the sites

- Perseverance to hold a partner farm, or an internal team, to a standard they are currently missing - and to keep doing it.

- Work from office

- Eggoz is an equal opportunity employer