Director of Food Safety
FDA audit. Departing director. Three facilities without unified FSQA leadership.
A family-owned poultry processor in the Southeast had grown through acquisition to three facilities and 2,500 employees. Each site had operated independently for years - different HACCP programmes, different documentation standards, different cultures. The patchwork had worked, until it didn't.
A routine FDA inspection flagged gaps at two of the three sites. Corrective action plans were issued. Weeks later, the company's long-serving Director of Food Safety announced his retirement - effective in 90 days. The incoming leader would inherit a regulatory remediation process mid-stream.
The brief was unusually precise: the candidate needed both the regulatory credibility to manage an active FDA remediation and the leadership capability to consolidate three independent quality teams. One without the other would fail.
Targeting regulatory experience - not just food safety credentials
We ruled out generalist food safety directors early. What this client needed was someone who had operated inside a regulated facility during - not before - an FDA corrective action process. That experience base is narrower than most hiring managers expect.
We defined the candidate profile around three non-negotiables:
- Direct experience managing an FDA 483 or Warning Letter response, including interaction with investigators
- Multi-site quality leadership - the ability to standardise systems across facilities with different cultures and histories
- Poultry or red meat processing background - FDA versus USDA regulatory distinction matters here
We ran parallel outreach into quality directors at larger processors who had the experience but were constrained by corporate bureaucracy, and into consultants who had delivered regulatory remediation and were ready to move into a permanent leadership role.
Four candidates were presented at the long-list stage. Two progressed to interview. An offer was made in week seven and accepted in week eight.
FDA observations cleared. Systems unified. Zero violations since.
The new director's first priority was the active corrective action plans. Working with the FDA district office, she submitted comprehensive responses within 60 days of joining. All observations were formally closed within six months - ahead of the timeline the previous team had proposed.
She then turned to the structural problem: three sites running three different systems. Within 12 months, a unified FSQA framework was in place across all facilities - same documentation, same audit standards, same training programme.
"We needed someone who'd been in the room with an FDA investigator before. Scott found us exactly that - someone who'd already lived through what we were facing, not someone who'd read about it."
VP of Operations · Poultry Processor · Southeast USA
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