As a family company, we serve people and communities. When you work at Meijer, you’re provided with career and community opportunities centered around leadership, personal growth and development. Consider joining our family – take care of your career and your community!
Meijer Rewards
Weekly pay
Scheduling flexibility
Paid parental leave
Paid education assistance
Team member discount
Development programs for advancement and career growth
Please review the job profile below and apply today!
Reporting to Director of Food Safety and Quality Assurance, this position provides scientific leadership in microbiology as relates to food safety, quality, and regulatory compliance. This position will support all Meijer Manufacturing facilities. This role is responsible for developing, standardizing, and validating microbiological programs to ensure product safety and quality, regulatory compliance, and brand protection. This position partners cross functionally with Operations, Product Development, Regulatory Compliance, Supply Chain, Food Safety, and external laboratories to implement best in class sampling and testing procedures.
What You'll Be Doing:
- Partner with site Quality Managers and Operations Leaders to ensure each site food safety program is current, effective, and managed at the site level.
- Develop and maintain corporate microbiological standards, policies, and procedures.
- Establish enterprise-wide environmental monitoring programs (EMP) aligned with regulatory expectations and industry best practices.
- Lead root cause investigations and troubleshooting for presumptive positive pathogen findings and recommend corrective actions.
- Oversee trend analysis of microbiological data and drive risk based decision making.
- Lead microbial risk assessments for ingredients, processes, and finished products.
- Standardize test methods, specifications, and validation protocols across all facilities.
- Serve as subject matter expert (SME) for microbiological compliance under applicable regulations (FDA, USDA, as applicable).
- Support FSMA preventive controls validation and verification activities.
- Assist with regulatory responses related to spoilage or microbial activity.
- Provide technical oversight to internal and third party laboratories.
- Evaluate and approve laboratory methods, validation studies, and rapid testing techniques.
- Review and interpret routine microbial sampling from manufacturing sites.
- Lead microbiological investigations where applicable during food safety incidents or recalls.
- Provide scientific guidance during product disposition decisions when necessary.
- Identify emerging microbiological risks and industry trends.
- Implement new technologies and methods to enhance detection and prevention.
- Train manufacturing team members on microbiological related best practices and risk mitigation (sampling and testing).
- Partner with site Quality Managers in troubleshooting microbial issues.
What You Bring with You (Qualifications):
· Ph.D or M.S. degree in Microbiology, Food Safety, or related fields
· Experience - functional/industry/commercial knowledge:
· 8+ years of relevant microbiology experience in the Food/Beverage manufacturing facilities
· Experience in multi-site organizations preferred.
· Strong working knowledge of FSMA, HACCP, environmental monitoring programs, and pathogen control.
· Expertise in foodborne pathogens (e.g. Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes, E.coli).
· Proficiency in microbiological testing methods (culture- based, OCR, rapids methods).
· Strong data interpretation and statistical trend analysis capabilities.
· Risk assessment and validation expertise
· Strong communication skills
· Ability to collaborate and communicate with cross-functional stakeholders
· Preferred experience in ready to eat foods (RTE) and high risk categories.
· PCQI and HACCP Certification preferred.
· Travel 25-40%
Skills Required
- Ph.D or M.S. degree in Microbiology, Food Safety, or related fields
- 8+ years of relevant microbiology experience in the Food/Beverage manufacturing facilities
- Expertise in foodborne pathogens
- Proficiency in microbiological testing methods
Meijer Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Meijer and has not been reviewed or approved by Meijer.
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Healthcare Strength — Healthcare coverage is described as a meaningful part of the total package, with medical, dental, and vision options and additional supplemental coverage. The availability of wellness programming and online doctor visits further strengthens the health offering.
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Retirement Support — Retirement offerings are positioned as solid, including 401(k) access and Roth 401(k) options that some find valuable. Union-negotiated structures are also associated with above-average pay and benefits in certain service roles.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time-off benefits are a recurring bright spot, including paid time off, vacation time, and holiday pay that can accumulate over time. Paid parental leave is also part of the package, supporting work-life needs alongside PTO.
Meijer Insights
What We Do
It takes guts to start a business during the Great Depression. And it takes vision to keep it going. Our founder, Hendrik Meijer, opened Thrifty Acres in 1934. Almost thirty years later, his son, Fred, pioneered the world’s first ever supercenter – setting the table for who we are today: a multi-billion-dollar household name in retail. Of course, we’re not done. Not by a long shot. We recently launched the nation’s largest grocery home-delivery service – reinventing the business of grocery shopping … again. A lot has changed over the years, except for one thing; we’re still family owned. And that sense of family runs deep in everything we do. It’s the difference between selling a product and serving a community, and it’s the reason we’ve given back over $30 million to local food pantries in the last ten years. So, if you appreciate the pioneering spirit of Meijer, we’d like to connect with you. Because the bigger our family, the better
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