Senior Hygiene Manager

Senior Hygiene Manager

Location: Glenbervie, Aberdeenshire
Contract: Permanent

This is an excellent opportunity for an experienced Senior Hygiene Manager, Group Hygiene Manager or senior food manufacturing hygiene professional with strong experience of high-care, high-risk or ready-to-eat (RTE) environments, food safety, audit compliance and continuous improvement.

Join our Team at Macphie - Let us introduce ourselves...

Macphie, an internationally acclaimed family ingredient manufacturer, proudly situated in the picturesque and tranquil landscapes of Glenbervie in Aberdeenshire with sites in Glasgow and Midlands too. Our expertise spans across a spectrum of delectable delights, including sauces, bakery creations, and heavenly ice cream toppings. We also cater to the evolving culinary landscape with our plant-based and gluten-free offerings. Trusted partners to some of the globe's leading food brands, we are dedicated to transforming ideas and creativity into tangible, delectable solutions.

About the Role

We’re looking for an experienced Senior Hygiene Manager to provide leadership and direction across our hygiene function, supporting our site Hygiene Managers and helping us drive consistently high standards across our manufacturing operations.

This is a senior and influential role with a particular focus on ready-to-eat and high-care environments. You’ll work across sites to align hygiene standards, strengthen ways of working and ensure our approach continues to meet the expectations of our customers, auditors, legislation and internal technical standards.

A key part of the role will be moving beyond simply maintaining standards. We’re looking for someone who will challenge existing practices, identify opportunities to improve and use data and insight to drive measurable change.

You’ll lead the development and review of hygiene-specific KPIs, using trends, verification results, audit findings and non-conformance data to identify risks and priorities. Working closely with our site Hygiene Managers, you’ll turn these insights into practical improvement plans and ensure actions are followed through and improvements sustained.

As our senior hygiene subject matter lead, you’ll also play an important role in sharing best practice and building capability across the business, working collaboratively with Operations, Technical, Quality, Engineering, Production and Continuous Improvement teams.

The role will predominantly work night shift, reflecting when much of our hygiene activity takes place. As a senior role supporting our site Hygiene teams, some flexibility will also be required to work early and back shifts when needed, ensuring strong visibility and support across the operation. Shift working will be compensated accordingly.

Some of your key responsibilities will include:

• Providing senior leadership, coaching and support to site Hygiene Managers, helping to create consistent standards and ways of working across our sites.
• Leading the development and implementation of common hygiene standards, cleaning routines, escalation processes and improvement plans.
• Acting as a subject matter expert for hygiene within ready-to-eat and high-care manufacturing environments.
• Developing and reviewing meaningful hygiene KPIs covering areas such as cleaning effectiveness, audit performance, corrective action closure and operational compliance.
• Using data, audit findings, hygiene verification results and non-conformance trends to identify risks and drive improvement.
• Leading structured continuous improvement activity to reduce repeat issues and embed sustainable improvements.
• Reviewing hygiene plans and ensuring they evolve in response to operational changes, customer expectations, audit findings and industry best practice.
• Constructively challenging existing practices and behaviours where standards or performance aren't where they need to be.
• Sharing best practice and learnings across Hygiene, Operations, Technical, Quality, Engineering and Production.
• Ensuring food safety, legality, quality, environmental and Health & Safety requirements are consistently met.
• Supporting customer visits, audits, cross-site projects and wider technical improvement activity where required.

This is an opportunity for someone who is passionate about hygiene excellence and wants to have a genuine impact on how hygiene is led and continuously improved across a food manufacturing business.

We’re looking for someone with strong food manufacturing hygiene expertise who can combine technical knowledge with the ability to lead, influence and challenge at a senior level.

You’ll ideally bring:

• Significant hygiene experience gained within food manufacturing, ideally within ready-to-eat, chilled, high-care or high-risk environments.
• Previous experience leading hygiene teams, Hygiene Managers or cross-functional hygiene improvement activity across departments or multiple sites.
• Strong knowledge of hygiene controls, cleaning validation and verification, food safety systems, customer standards, audit requirements and relevant legislation.
• Experience developing and using KPIs and performance data to identify trends, manage risk and drive measurable improvement.
• A strong understanding of audit requirements and the ability to turn audit findings and non-conformances into sustainable corrective actions.
• The ability to challenge established practices constructively and influence others to raise standards.
• Strong leadership and coaching skills, with the ability to build capability and accountability within hygiene teams.
• Excellent planning and organisational skills, with the ability to manage priorities across different sites and departments.
• Strong analytical skills and confidence interpreting hygiene and performance data.
• The ability to build effective relationships across Operations, Technical, Quality, Engineering, Production and senior leadership.
• Clear and confident communication skills, including the ability to communicate risks, priorities and improvement plans at all levels.
• A proactive, continuous-improvement mindset and a genuine desire to seek out and embed industry best practice.
• The ability to balance food safety and technical risk with operational requirements, resources and customer expectations.

Food manufacturing experience is important for this position, but just as importantly, we’re looking for someone who won’t simply accept “that’s how we’ve always done it.” You’ll be comfortable asking the right questions, challenging where necessary and bringing people with you as you raise standards.

Indulge in the Sweet Perks of Joining Macphie!

At Macphie, we believe in crafting not only delightful culinary experiences but also providing our team with a recipe for success in their professional lives. Here is a taste of how we'll look after you as part of our Sweet Success:

• Annual Leave: Recharge your batteries with a generous annual leave entitlement of 23 days, plus 9 public holidays, giving you a refreshing total of 32 days to explore, relax, and savour life outside of work.
• Profit-Related Pay (PRP): Your dedication will not go unnoticed! Enjoy conditional PRP, aligning with our company's performance and rewarding your commitment to our shared success.
• Pension Perks: Secure your financial future with our pension enrolment, where you contribute 5%, and we match it with a 6% employer contribution.
• Health and Wellness Buffet: We care about your well-being. Access our Employee Assistance Program, a 24/7 GP line, and indulge in our cycle-to-work scheme. Keep your mind and body in top shape with our Leisure Subsidy Scheme and free fruit offerings.
• Eco-Friendly Commute: Embrace sustainable living with our electric car charging stations. Enjoy the convenience of free parking while contributing to a greener planet.
• Lifelong Learning: Cultivate your mind with our company further education scheme and unlock opportunities for personal and professional growth.
• Family First: We support your journey into parenthood with enhanced maternity, paternity, and adoption pay.
• Exclusive Employee Benefits: Revel in exclusive benefits like an education bursary via our employee trust and Funeral Concierge provided by Everest Funeral Concierge Service, a brand-new benefit.
• Beyond Probation: Once you have passed probation over the initial three months, you will then be able to unlock an array of group benefits, including private medical insurance & Westfield Health, permanent health insurance, and 3x death in service life assurance.

To see all of the Macphie employee benefits please click here.

And now, let us talk about what we need from you:

Like every employer, legally, we require to check and confirm that you have the right to work in the UK. If we offer you a job and you accept, there are some checks that we need to complete before you can start with us. In addition to the above, we will also collect satisfactory employment references.

Additional Information

At this time, we are unable to provide visa sponsorship. Candidates must have the right to work in the UK on a permanent basis without requiring sponsorship now or in the future.

We are not seeking assistance from recruitment agencies for this position. Unsolicited CVs will not be considered.

Closing Date for Applications: Monday 26th October 2026