DG+CC
Operations / Technical
Hygiene Manager – Food Manufacturing
Take ownership of hygiene and cleaning standards across our bakery, food-production areas, warehouse, offices, welfare facilities, storage and external areas.
Apply nowUpload your CV and cover letter. No account needed.
Site-wide hygiene management
- Take overall responsibility for cleaning and hygiene standards across bakery and production areas, machinery, warehouse, storage and dispatch areas, offices, welfare and communal areas, toilets, changing facilities, corridors, waste areas and applicable external areas.
- Manage the day-to-day hygiene function and hygiene team.
- Develop, maintain and continually improve daily, weekly, periodic and deep-cleaning schedules and procedures.
- Ensure scheduled cleaning is completed correctly and within the required timescales.
- Carry out regular site inspections and maintain high standards throughout the working day.
- Ensure effective cleaning between products and production activities where required.
- Identify poor standards or recurring problems, address their root causes and implement corrective action.
Hands-on leadership
- Lead from the front and work alongside the hygiene team when required.
- Demonstrate the cleaning methods and standards expected from team members.
- Provide hands-on support during deep cleans, busy periods, staff absence and other operational requirements.
- Be willing to undertake cleaning duties across production, warehouse, office and other site areas.
- Maintain a visible site presence and set the standard through personal example.
Team leadership
- Lead, organise, motivate and develop the hygiene team.
- Allocate workloads and ensure appropriate hygiene resources are available.
- Set clear standards and monitor performance, productivity and quality of work.
- Train team members in cleaning procedures, chemical handling, equipment use and food-safety requirements.
- Ensure new starters receive appropriate training and competency sign-off.
- Run team briefings and communicate changes to procedures or standards.
- Work with management on performance, attendance and training concerns.
- Build a culture of accountability, teamwork and pride in site hygiene.
Food safety and compliance
- Ensure hygiene activities comply with the site food-safety management system, SALSA, HACCP, relevant legislation and company standards.
- Maintain accurate, complete and audit-ready hygiene documentation.
- Work with Technical/QA to support allergen management and prevent cross-contamination.
- Ensure correct controls are followed when cleaning food-contact equipment and production areas.
- Participate in internal audits, SALSA audits, customer visits and regulatory inspections.
- Own hygiene-related corrective actions and complete them within agreed timescales.
- Support investigations into hygiene or contamination-related non-conformances.
Cleaning verification
- Implement effective methods for verifying cleaning standards.
- Complete documented post-clean inspections where required.
- Work with Technical/QA on environmental monitoring, swabbing and other verification programmes where applicable.
- Analyse results, investigate failures and implement corrective and preventative action.
- Release production areas and equipment only when the required hygiene standard has been achieved.
Chemicals and cleaning equipment
- Ensure cleaning chemicals are correctly selected, stored, labelled and controlled.
- Maintain COSHH information and ensure the team understands the requirements.
- Ensure chemicals are used at the correct concentration and in line with manufacturer instructions.
- Monitor chemical usage and reduce unnecessary consumption.
- Ensure cleaning equipment is stored, maintained, segregated and colour-coded correctly.
- Arrange repair or replacement of damaged equipment and work with suppliers to improve cleaning effectiveness.
Site standards and continuous improvement
- Identify opportunities to improve standards, cleaning effectiveness and labour efficiency without compromising safety or quality.
- Develop cleaning processes for new equipment, products and production areas.
- Work with Production and Maintenance to improve equipment or infrastructure that is difficult to clean.
- Monitor recurring issues and address their root causes.
- Support pest prevention through strong housekeeping and hygiene standards.
- Maintain consistently high standards across production, warehouse, office, welfare, waste and external areas.
Health and safety
- Ensure hygiene work is carried out safely and appropriate PPE is available and used.
- Maintain safe systems of work for machinery and equipment cleaning.
- Ensure chemicals are handled and stored safely in accordance with COSHH.
- Identify and report hazards, damaged equipment and unsafe working practices.
- Ensure team members receive appropriate health-and-safety training.
- Support safe working practices for wet floors, manual handling, working at height and specialist cleaning equipment.
How performance is measured
- Site hygiene inspection and audit scores.
- Completion of scheduled cleaning and deep-cleaning activities.
- SALSA and internal audit performance.
- Number and severity of hygiene-related non-conformances.
- Cleaning verification and swab pass rates.
- Corrective-action completion.
- Hygiene labour efficiency and chemical usage.
- Training and competency completion.
- Reduction in repeat issues and overall site cleanliness.
Essential skills and experience
- Experience in a food-manufacturing hygiene environment.
- Experience supervising or managing a hygiene or cleaning team.
- Strong knowledge of food-manufacturing hygiene standards.
- A willingness to work hands-on alongside the team.
- Good knowledge of cleaning chemicals, safe chemical handling and COSHH.
- Experience creating and working with cleaning schedules and documented procedures.
- Ability to identify poor standards and implement corrective action.
- Strong organisation, people management, written communication and verbal communication skills.
- Ability to manage priorities in a fast-paced manufacturing environment and maintain accurate records.
Desirable experience
- Previous experience as a Hygiene Manager, Hygiene Supervisor or similar within food manufacturing.
- Bakery, confectionery or ready-to-eat food experience.
- Experience supporting SALSA audits.
- A HACCP qualification or good working knowledge of HACCP principles.
- Food Safety, COSHH or chemical-safety training.
- Internal-auditing experience.
- Environmental-monitoring and hygiene-verification experience.
- Experience implementing or improving hygiene-management systems.
Personal attributes
- Leads from the front and gets involved rather than simply delegating.
- Highly organised, accountable and able to take ownership.
- Exceptionally high standards and strong attention to detail.
- Comfortable challenging poor standards constructively.
- Proud of maintaining a clean and well-presented site.
- Able to motivate and develop a team.
- Calm and organised in a busy manufacturing environment.
- Looks for root causes and continually improves standards and efficiency.
- Understands that excellent hygiene is fundamental to food safety, product quality and business success.