Sanitation Manager

Job Description

Job Description

Senior Sanitation Manager

Position Summar y

The Senior Sanitation Manager is a transformational leadership role responsible for designing, building, implementing, leading, and continuously improving the plant's sanitation operating system. This position is intended for an experienced food-manufacturing sanitation leader who can create the infrastructure required to support a world-class, large-scale food manufacturing operation - not simply supervise nightly cleaning.

The successful candidate will assess the current state, establish risk-based standards, create the required sanitation programs and documentation, build workforce capability, implement verification and performance-management systems, and develop a sustainable sanitation culture focused on food safety, employee safety, execution discipline, audit readiness, reliability, and continuous improvement.

Scope of Responsibility1. Build the Sanitation Management System

• Design and implement the plant-wide sanitation operating framework, governance model, standards, routines, and accountability system.
• Create the Master Sanitation Schedule (MSS), equipment-specific Sanitation Standard Operating Procedures (SSOPs), area cleaning standards, cleaning frequencies, work instructions, inspection criteria, and required records.
• Define what must be cleaned, how it is cleaned, who owns the task, required frequency, chemicals and concentrations, temperature/contact -time requirements, PPE, LOTO requirements, verification method, acceptance criteria, and escalation process.
• Create standardized sanitation shift startup, execution, pre-operational readiness, handoff, and escalation processes.

2. Facility & Equipment Sanitation Risk Assessment

• Conduct a comprehensive sanitation assessment of production equipment, process areas, floors, drains, walls, ceilings, overheads, platforms, piping, utilities, warehouses, coolers/freezers, ingredient areas, waste areas, and support spaces.
• Develop and maintain a sanitation risk register addressing microbiological, allergen, foreign-material, cross-contamination, cleaning-access, and hygienic-design risks.
• Prioritize high-risk assets and areas for enhanced cleaning frequency, verification, management oversight, and corrective action.

3. Equipment-Specific Sanitation Standards

• Develop detailed procedures covering shutdown, safe isolation/LOTO, teardown, gross soil removal, rinsing, chemical application, mechanical action, contact time, final rinse, inspection, sanitizing, reassembly, verification, and release.
• Create visual standards where beneficial, including photographs or diagrams identifying teardown points, food-contact surfaces, difficult-to-clean locations, inspection points, and potential harborage areas.
• Ensure sanitation methods are practical, repeatable, trainable, and capable of producing consistent results regardless of the employee performing the work.

4. Verification, Pre-Operational Readiness & Corrective Action

• Develop a layered sanitation verification system using appropriate methods such as visual inspection, ATP, protein/allergen testing, environmental monitoring, microbiological testing, chemical concentration verification, and pre-operational inspection.
• Establish defined acceptance criteria and a disciplined failure response: contain, reclean, reinspect, document, investigate, correct, and verify effectiveness.
• Drive improvement in first-pass pre-operational acceptance and eliminate repeat failures through structured root-cause analysis and corrective action.
• Ensure sanitation conducts an effective internal inspection before equipment or areas are presented for Quality/Food Safety verification.

5. Environmental Sanitation & Food-Safety Partnership

• Partner with Quality/Food Safety to develop and sustain a risk-based environmental sanitation strategy, including sampling locations, frequencies, trend analysis, investigative sampling, escalation criteria, and corrective actions.
• Ensure sanitation practices support GMPs, HACCP/Food Safety Plans, Preventive Controls, allergen controls, pest prevention, foreign-material prevention, and applicable regulatory, customer, and GFSI-recognized requirements.
• Maintain a continuous audit-ready state rather than preparing sanitation systems only when an audit or customer visit is approaching.

6. Sanitation Training, Qualification & Leadership

• Build a formal sanitation training, qualification, and competency-verification system for sanitation employees, leads, and supervisors.
• Develop training covering sanitation fundamentals, food safety, chemicals, PPE, LOTO, equipment-specific cleaning, allergen controls, cross-contamination prevention, sanitation tools, environmental pathogen awareness, and pre-op expectations.
• Establish clear performance standards, coaching routines, accountability, and development paths for sanitation leadership.
• Create a strong floor-based leadership culture with visible management presence throughout the sanitation window.

7. Employee Safety & Chemical Management

• Integrate safety into every sanitation standard with strong controls for LOTO, chemical handling, electrical exposure, hot water/steam, elevated work, machine guarding, slips/trips/falls, confined spaces where applicable, and safe equipment access.
• Establish chemical labeling, storage, dispensing, concentration verification, SDS accessibility, usage monitoring, and employee training requirements.
• Stop unsafe activities and ensure production or startup pressure never overrides employee safety or food-safety requirements.

8. Hygienic Design & Equipment Improvement

• Partner with Maintenance and Engineering to identify conditions that prevent effective cleaning, including poor drainage, inaccessible surfaces, cracked welds, hollow framework, damaged seals, corroded surfaces, product accumulation points, standing water, and harborage risks.
• Create and maintain a prioritized hygienic-design improvement register categorized as immediate repair, planned maintenance, or capital improvement.
• Provide sanitation input into equipment modifications, installations, commissioning, and capital projects to ensure cleanability is considered before startup.

9. Performance Management & Continuous Improvement

• Develop sanitation KPIs, targets, trend reporting, and daily/weekly management routines.
• Use data to identify recurring losses, sanitation bottlenecks, excessive labor or chemical usage, repeat failures, training gaps, and opportunities to reduce sanitation time without compromising safety or food safety.
• Lead structured root-cause analysis and corrective/preventive action for significant or recurring sanitation failures.
• Drive continuous improvement toward best-in-class sanitation reliability, efficiency, and compliance.

10. Cross-Functional Leadership

• Work closely with Operations, Quality/Food Safety, Maintenance, Engineering, Safety, Warehouse, and other functions to coordinate shutdown, sanitation, repairs, inspection, release, and production startup.
• Escalate risks early and provide clear, fact-based communication regarding sanitation readiness, unresolved conditions, startup risk, and required corrective actions.
• Lead routine sanitation performance reviews with clearly assigned actions, owners, and due dates.

Required Qualifications

• Minimum 5 years of progressive sanitation experience in food manufacturing; high-volume wet-cleaning environments strongly preferred.
• Minimum 3 years of sanitation leadership experience with responsibility for supervisors, leads, and/or sanitation teams.
• Demonstrated experience building, redesigning, or significantly improving a sanitation program - not only maintaining an established program.
• Strong working knowledge of GMPs, sanitation principles, food-safety systems, equipment sanitation, chemical application, LOTO, and sanitation verification.
• Demonstrated ability to develop procedures, training systems, performance metrics, root-cause processes, and sustainable operating routines.
• Strong leadership, communication, coaching, accountability, analytical, and cross-functional problem-solving skills.
• Ability and willingness to maintain a strong floor presence during overnight sanitation operations.

3rd Shift