Job Description - Plant Lead - Spice Manufacturing

The Plant Head will lead overall operations of the spice manufacturing facility, ensuring safe, efficient, and compliant production while meeting quality, cost, and delivery targets. The role is responsible for end-to-end plant performance, including production, quality, maintenance, supply chain coordination, and people management.

Key responsibilities:

- Oversee day-to-day plant operations including production planning, processing, blending, grinding, cleaning, and packing of spices in line with demand and quality standards.

- Ensure strict compliance with food safety, FSSAI, HACCP, GMP, and hygiene norms across all processing areas.

- Drive achievement of production, yield, cost, and on-time dispatch targets through effective planning and resource utilization.

- Implement and monitor quality systems for raw materials, in-process, and finished goods in close coordination with QA/QC.

- Ensure preventive and breakdown maintenance of plant and utilities to minimize downtime and enhance equipment reliability.

- Lead continuous improvement, productivity, and waste reduction initiatives (e.g., lean, 5S, Kaizen) within the plant.

- Manage and develop the plant team, build a strong safety and food-safety culture, and ensure statutory compliance.

- Coordinate with procurement, supply chain, sales, and finance to support smooth order fulfillment and cost control.

- Monitor and report key plant KPIs (OEE, yield, rejections, energy consumption, safety incidents) and drive corrective actions.

Required qualifications:

- Bachelor's degree/PG in Food Technology, Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related discipline.

- 10 - 15 years of experience in food or spice processing, with at least 5 years in a plant leadership or senior operations role.

- Strong knowledge of food safety regulations, FSSAI, HACCP, GMP, and audit requirements for spice/food plants.

- Proven experience in production planning, quality systems, maintenance coordination, and cost control in a manufacturing setup.

Key skills and competencies:

- Strong leadership and people management skills with experience handling shop-floor teams.

- Sound understanding of processing technologies used in spice cleaning, grinding, blending, and packaging.

- Data-driven approach with ability to analyze KPIs and implement process improvements.

- Excellent problem-solving, decision-making, and cross-functional coordination skills.

- Strong focus on safety, quality, compliance, and continuous improvement.