Specialist SQM
Location: Hershey, PA
Why Hershey:
At The Hershey Company, our culture is rooted in purpose and inspired by Milton Hershey’s enduring vision that business should create opportunity for others. Through our commitment to corporate philanthropy, we create positive impact by supporting communities, helping children thrive, and operating as a business for good. This includes our deep and long standing partnership with Milton Hershey School, where we invest in education, workforce readiness, and hands on engagement to help students succeed beyond the classroom. Supported by strategic grantmaking, product donations, cross brand collaboration, and strong employee volunteerism, Hershey offers a place to work where making a difference—locally and globally—is part of how we do business every day.
About The Hershey Company
The Hershey Company is an industry-leading snacks company known for making more moments of goodness through its iconic brands. With a strong portfolio across chocolate, confectionery, and salty snacks, Hershey delights consumers every day. Our beloved brands include Hershey’s, Reese’s, KitKat®, Dots Pretzels, Lesser Evil, Jolly Rancher, Twizzlers, Ice Breakers, and more.
At Hershey, we are committed to making a meaningful difference in the communities where we live, work, and do business. This commitment originated with our founder, Milton Hershey, and continues to shape who we are today. Guided by our employee value proposition, Lead Today. Create Tomorrow, we empower our people to drive impact now while shaping what comes next. Our One Hershey mindset brings teams together across functions, geographies, and businesses, enabling us to operate with speed, collaboration, and shared purpose.
How will you fit in the big picture?
The Specialist SQM will support supplier quality and food safety activities for assigned suppliers, products, processes, or project areas. This role helps coordinate recurring QA verifications, testing activities, supplier documentation reviews, food safety monitoring, and product/process verification work to ensure requirements are met and risks are identified and escalated appropriately.
Working under general supervision, this role will organize and prioritize work to meet service, cost, quality, and compliance objectives. The Specialist SQM will communicate findings, identify trends within scope, support defined process adjustments, and help drive consistency and continuous improvement in quality and food safety performance.
What will you do?
- Coordinate recurring QA checks, testing activities, sampling plans, specification checks, sensory evaluations, and product/process verification activities for assigned products, lines, suppliers, or processes.
- Support the Quality Design Process for chocolate paste renovation and Superior Snacking formulation-change projects, including coordination with external chocolate paste suppliers and internal cross-functional partners.
- Conduct and support supplier quality assessments for ingredient, packaging, and storage sites to help ensure compliance with government regulations, industry standards, and company supplier quality management policies.
- Review supplier information forms and documentation as part of the ingredient and packaging approval process, ensuring documentation meets company requirements and supporting the overall approval program.
- Monitor food safety programs within assigned scope, including sanitation verification, hygiene audits, allergen control checks, and environmental monitoring.
- Use QA, food safety, laboratory, supplier, and verification data to identify patterns, recurring issues, or emerging risks; summarize findings and recommend defined improvements.
- Support incident investigations by collecting information, analyzing results, reviewing process conditions and trends, and coordinating follow-up checks to confirm corrective actions are effective.
- Partner with Product Development, Sensory, Commercial, Procurement, Operations, Manufacturing, and QRC teams to coordinate regulatory, labeling, claims, material receipt, and supplier quality activities.
- Maintain accurate QA, food safety, and laboratory documentation in line with document-control requirements; prepare reports or dashboards to support continuous improvement discussions.
Minimum Education & Requirements
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Bachelor’s degree in Food Science, Chemistry, Biology, Microbiology, Engineering, or a related technical field preferred.
- 1+ years of relevant experience in quality, food safety, supplier quality, manufacturing quality systems, laboratory testing, product/process verification, or a related area.
- Experience in food manufacturing, quality systems, supplier quality, sanitation, auditing, HACCP, risk identification, or risk management preferred.
- Experience in chocolate, confectionery, snacking, or ingredient/packaging supplier quality preferred.
Benefits and Perks
At Hershey, we offer competitive pay and a comprehensive total rewards package designed to support your wellbeing, financial security, and life outside of work.
- Health & Wellbeing: Medical, dental, and vision coverage, plus wellness programs that support your physical and mental health.
- Financial Security: Competitive pay, annual incentive opportunities, and a 401(k) with company match.
- Time Off & Flexibility: Paid time off, company holidays, and flexible ways of working where applicable.
- Growth & Development: Career development programs, learning opportunities, and internal mobility.
Benefits may vary based on role, location, and eligibility.
The Hershey Company is an Equal Opportunity Employer. The policy of The Hershey Company is to extend opportunities to qualified applicants and employees on an equal basis regardless of an individual's race, color, gender, age, national origin, religion, citizenship status, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, physical or mental disability, protected veteran status, genetic information, pregnancy, or any other categories protected by applicable federal, state or local laws.
The Hershey Company is an Equal Opportunity Employer - Minority/Female/Disabled/Protected Veterans.
You may request a reasonable accommodation if you are unable or limited in your ability to use or access our online application process as a result of a disability.
You can request an accommodation via phone or email.
To request an accommodation via phone, please call +1 877-804-1794 and leave a voicemail with your contact information. You may also email a request for accommodation to ApplicationHelp@hersheys.com. Please be sure to include “Accommodation Needed” in the subject line. This will ensure that your email is routed to the appropriate contact who will handle your request.
Nearest Major Market: Harrisburg
