Who are we?

Buyers Edge Platform stands at the forefront of revolutionizing the foodservice industry through technology, purchasing power and partnerships. We are dedicated to empowering stakeholders across the entire foodservice ecosystem (operators, distributors, manufacturers) with efficiency and unprecedented visibility. With a diverse portfolio of over a dozen brands, our mission is clear: to reduce costs, streamline the foodservice supply chain, and propel the industry from manual to automated.
Today, we are one of the largest players in foodservice, with over 200K operator locations across North America and over $50 billion of aggregated spend volume. Our commitment to foodservice excellence is proven in four distinct areas of value: Digital Procurement Network, Fresh Solutions, Supply Chain Management, and Software. Buyers Edge Platform is not just a provider - we are a strategic partner on the journey towards a more efficient, connected, and automated future for the foodservice industry.

The Buyer's Edge Platform Fresh Division is an entity comprised of Fresh Concepts, Produce Alliance, Fresh Alliance & Fresh Services with over 35 years of produce management solutions. The Fresh Division provides fresh produce category management services, procurement and contracting, national distribution, freight management, k-12 solutions, technology services, and food safety assurance to food service clients across North America, the Caribbean and beyond. The Fresh Division has a national footprint of over 125+ industry leading distributors in North America, and partnerships with the most premier grower shippers.

This position will work a hybrid schedule (approximately 2-3 days in-office/week) based out of one of our offices in either Chicago, IL; Bannockburn, IL; or Atlanta, GA. We expect this person to travel up to 50-75% of the time. Most travel will be domestic, however some could be international. We are unable to offer work sponsorship for this role.

Your impact:

As the FSQA Director of National Accounts, this role will be responsible for supporting the food safety and quality strategies of any National account within the Fresh Division. This role will largely be customer facing.

The role will work closely with the Account Manager and Executive team to become intimate with the key client strategies, challenges, gaps, and risks to be an advocate and consultant to Fresh Division clients as it relates to FSQA areas. This role will largely be facing the clients' FSQA teams and executives. The role will also support day to day food safety needs of the client such as substitute supplier review, food safety claims management, specification tolerance, etc. As well as supporting clients' on-going quality improvement and FSQA initiatives driven by the needs of the clients.

The role will be the Account Manger's primary liaison for food safety and quality initiatives with other departmental organizations and teams. The role will ensure awareness and compliance with our clients' food safety and quality initiatives.

The role will continuously engage with industry Food Safety individuals and organizations to ensure continuous knowledge, awareness, and growth. The role work with the other Fresh Division Food Safety leaders to ensure the team at large keeps up with current policy and current regulatory best practices. The position will leverage continuous improvement practices and industry best practices to improve our client programs and initiatives, while ensuring the policies and procedures of the Fresh Division Food Safety team are being followed.

The role will work closely with the Senior Director of Food Safety and Compliance as well as lead and manage the Food Safety Project Manager. This role will work with the FSQA Project Manager, National Accounts position to ensure all Client's projects and initiatives are being monitored and followed through on commitments. The role will work with other teams within the Fresh Services Food Safety team to ensure the efficiency of task and project management. The role will also work cross functionally internally with other teams within the Fresh Division such as Contracts and Procurement, Supply Chain, Sales, Produce Support Specialist team, etc.

Responsibilities will include:

• Client support and program development of Food Safety initiatives
• Align with clients on key Food Safety initiatives.
• Participate in recurring client and account management level engagements to ensure on-going alignment. Both virtually and in person at clients' locations.
• Ensure client's food safety initiatives are clearly defined, met, or exceeded by our team.
• Support product Quality initiatives.
• Provide technical expertise with client specification development.
• Provide technical support in specification documentation (ensuring that an achievable and measurable specification is achieved).
• Support Solutions, Procurement, and suppliers with technical aspects in development of new products.
• Industry expertise and regulation development / adherence.
• Ensure clients are informed of all material changes in food safety policy that may impact their business.
• Ensure clients understand and are aware of the latest changes in policy and the client's responsibility / exposure related to changes in food safety policy.
• Through on-going client engagement, provide consultation and expertise to clients related to mitigation and proactive activities clients should be engaging in to prepare for changes in food safety policy and regulations.
• Attend industry conferences for personal professional development and lead client engagement at such conferences.

About you:

• 10+ years experience in a food safety role, preferably Produce, Meat and/or Seafood.
• 5+ years experience in a processor or distributor facility OR within a National Foodservice organization (one of our current clients or the like preferred)
• Master's degree in food science / safety or related studies preferred.
• Solid Leadership and Business Accountability Track Record
• Foodservice industry experience highly desirable, either on supplier, distributor, or client sides.
• Demonstrated project management and superior personal productivity and oral, written communication skills.
• Demonstrated ability to work positively with cross functional teams.
• Excellent communication skills required. Including listening, written, oral, and demonstrated group presentation. Excellent personal productivity skills and communications such as word, power-point, excel, etc.
• Ability to travel to field or farm level facilities as well as coolers, freezers, or manufacturing facilities including the ability to physically inspect these areas. This may include prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer and needing to lift up to 15 pounds at times.
• Ability to drive or rent a car when needed.

Don't meet every requirement mentioned here? Studies have shown that women, communities of color and historically underrepresented talent are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At Buyers Edge Platform and our subsidiary brands, we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive and authentic workplace. So, if you're excited about this role but your past experience doesn't align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we strongly encourage you to apply. You may be just the right candidate for this position or others with us!

What's in this for you?

Amazing coverages to start. Medical, dental, and vision coverages are just the beginning! We also offer ancillary plans, such as flexible spending accounts for both health and dependent care, critical illness, accident, and voluntary life as well as company paid life and long-term-disability plans! On top of this, we also offer a 401(k) plan with company match.

Invest in your success.We will provide you with a thorough training and development program; and offer competitive compensation.

Live well = Work well. Relax with our Personal Responsibility Paid Time Off policy where you don't have to accrue time off in order to take it!