QRC Specialist - Korea and Japan

Location: Seoul, South Korea

Summary:  

This role will ensure that FSQA (Food Safety & Quality Assurance) and regulatory requirements are being met for our products marketed in Korea and Japan. The person is responsible for conducting audits and overseeing contract manufacturers, co-packers, suppliers, licensing & food service partner and distributors to ensure they are adhering to the in-market Quality, Food Safety, and regulatory requirements in compliance with Hershey standards. They would provide guidance and support to improve our supply chain process continually. This individual would ideally come with food manufacturing and support to other departments (i.e., project managers, business teams, supply chain etc.). They should also guide/support in Food Safety Standards, food safety regulations, weight control, sanitary design, allergens, cleaning, incident management and other related matters. This individual would eventually have a sound working knowledge of Hershey’s quality system requirements. Examples include auditing and assessing internal and external quality programs

Major Duties and Responsibilities:

Compliance

Implements quality systems and programs to ensure that Hershey Product Excellence Program (PEP) standards are consistently achieved with our External partners (co-pack, distributor, co-manufacturing & and suppliers). Provides training programs, auditing of quality systems, troubleshooting, and incident management. Acts as quality liaison for strategic partners.

Training

Directly responsible for implementing and executing training programs to assure compliance and understanding of internal food safety & quality expectations, and regulatory compliance for all the external partners.

Auditing:  Conducts quality systems audits and manages external audit partners to verify Hershey System compliance at all the external partners. Responsible for providing assessments of adequacy and issuing recommendations or guidelines to ensure compliance standards are met. Provide audit summaries to Hershey’s Senior Management and/or external business partners. Owner and Leader in the Qualification Process for new Contract Manufacturers in the Region. Verify Corrective action plan efficacy and provide feedback.

Regional Co-ordination

Support the regional QRC manager in driving customer incident reporting / data analysis and global reporting for APAC & RDA management for the APAC region and provide insights to drive improvements

Incident Management

Directs troubleshooting incidents of low to medium complexity with potential financial or regulatory impacts in the region. Partner with cross-functional groups (Marketing, Legal, etc.) and external business partners to ensure communications and action plans are established. Ensure timely and cost-effective resolutions are achieved. Support regional lead to liaison with domestic and international regulatory agencies to manage product recalls, withdrawals, and recovery

Licensed Business & Food Service

Conducts quality systems audits and manages external audits partners to verify Hershey System compliance for all the licensed business and food service business partners. Responsible for providing assessments of adequacy and issuing recommendations or guidelines to ensure compliance standards are met to the global licensing and food service team

Business Engagement:

-Actively participate in cross-functional meetings that support product change/innovation (i.e., Stage-Gate, Filter, etc.).

-Provide support and drive compliance to be met in the region for all innovation and actively engage in Quality design review.

- Must have a strong commercial mindset and understand the impact of the proposal and the importance of troubleshooting to our bottom line.

- Support the CI initiative of the business by actively participating and lead QRC compliance to drive change

Reporting

Perform monthly reporting on the complaint, distributors, co-man and co-pack status on KPI dashboards. Provide a quarterly report on Customer complaints due to manufacturing plans and loading issues)

Minimum knowledge, skills and abilities required to successfully perform major duties/responsibilities: 

• Good understanding of Korea and Japan Food regulations, Quality & Food Safety Standards (food safety requirements, additives, nutrition, standards of identity)
• High proficiency in use of advanced computational software (i.e., Excel, Power point, SAP)
• Effective problem solving and critical thinking. Comfortable with ambiguity.
• Effective analytical and researching skills.
• Superior communication skills in verbal and written form (in Korean). Able to communicate, email with acceptable English communication
• Effective organizational skills and ability to self-manage for managing numerous priorities.
• Strong initiative, and the ability to change in a fast-changing environment.
• Ability to influence and make complicated subjects clear and presentable.
• Impeccable ethics and must maintain a high level of confidentiality.

Education/Experience:

• Bachelor Degree in Science Related Field (Food Nutrition, Food Science, Biology, Chemistry) or equivalent
• Minimum 3 year’s Food Quality and Safety experience in a Food or Beverage FMCG company
• SAP experience preferred
• Must be willing to work in flexible working hours