Plant Controller (49173)

One Fine Family is built on a simple belief — everyone deserves great chicken at a great price. Proudly based in Baltimore for more than 60 years, we’ve grown into a family of brands united by that purpose. One Fine Chicken delivers “Better Chicken for Everyone” with premium quality at an incredible value. Easy Street brings bold, globally inspired flavors to everyday meals, capturing the vibrant spirit of street food culture. Holly Poultry, our food service brand, has earned the trust of some of the nation’s most beloved restaurants, including Raising Cane’s, Hattie B’s, Royal Farms, and Nando’s, by providing fresh, high-quality poultry with unmatched confidence and reliability. Rooted in community and driven by purpose, One Fine Family proudly gives back, donating more than 300,000 pounds of chicken each year to local food banks and charities--because better chicken should make life better for everyone.

Join us and be a part of something bigger.  At One Fine Family, we are united by purpose, fueled by passion, and committed to making a difference. Together, we’re shaping the future of food — one plate, one person, and One Fine Family at a time

We are currently hiring a Plant Controller

Position Summary

The Plant Controller serves as the primary Accounting and Finance partner to plant operations and is responsible for ensuring the financial integrity and accuracy of manufacturing activity.

This position bridges Operations and Corporate Finance through hands-on ownership of inventory controls, standard costing, manufacturing variance analysis, operational testing, and plant-level financial reporting. The Plant Controller works closely with Operations, Maintenance, Procurement, Supply Chain, Continuous Improvement, and Finance to ensure that physical activity occurring on the production floor is accurately reflected in the company's financial systems.

This is a highly operational finance position. The successful candidate must be comfortable working both in financial systems and on the production floor, identifying process gaps, challenging results that do not appear reasonable, determining root causes, and driving issues through resolution.

The Plant Controller will have significant visibility throughout the organization and will work directly with plant leadership and Finance leadership to improve financial controls, manufacturing performance, costing accuracy, and operational decision-making.

Essential Responsibilities:

Inventory Control & Reconciliation

• Own financial controls surrounding raw materials, packaging, work-in-process, finished goods, and critical spare parts inventory.
• Establish, maintain, and continuously improve cycle count, physical inventory, reconciliation, and inventory adjustment procedures.
• Partner with Operations to ensure inventory processes and controls are consistently followed and operating effectively.
• Investigate significant or recurring inventory discrepancies and work with Operations to identify root causes and implement corrective actions.
• Review periodic inventory adjustments for accuracy, completeness, and reasonableness.
• Reconcile physical inventory activity to financial records and investigate unexplained differences.
• Develop reporting to identify inventory accuracy trends, recurring adjustment drivers, and opportunities for improvement.
• Partner with Maintenance and Operations to establish appropriate tracking, valuation, and control procedures for critical spare parts inventory.
• Recommend and implement internal controls designed to improve inventory accuracy and minimize financial exposure.

Standard Costing & Product Cost Management

• Own and maintain manufacturing standard costs within the Company's ERP system.
• Establish and periodically validate standards for raw materials, packaging, direct and indirect labor, yields, and manufacturing overhead.
• Ensure standards reasonably reflect current production processes, material costs, labor requirements, equipment usage, and expected yields.
• Conduct or coordinate production-floor testing, time studies, yield studies, packaging usage studies, and labor studies to validate manufacturing standards.
• Review product costing and identify standards that may no longer accurately reflect actual manufacturing activity.
• Update or recommend updates to standards when changes in specifications, processes, equipment, formulations, labor requirements, material costs, or production yields warrant revision.
• Partner with Operations and Continuous Improvement to understand the operational drivers behind product costs and identify opportunities to improve manufacturing efficiency.

Manufacturing Variance Analysis

• Analyze monthly net manufacturing variances and clearly explain the operational drivers behind financial results.
• Evaluate material usage, yield, labor efficiency and mix, packaging usage, purchase price, dumps, production volume, and product mix variances.
• Reconcile manufacturing variances to underlying operational activity and investigate unusual, significant, or recurring results.
• Distinguish true operating performance from issues caused by incorrect standards, transaction errors, timing differences, inventory inaccuracies, system issues, or incomplete production reporting.
• Identify trends and recurring variance drivers and communicate findings to Finance and Operations leadership.
• Prepare timely monthly variance reporting and partner with Operations to develop and monitor corrective actions.
• Challenge results that appear unreasonable and independently investigate the underlying activity until the cause is understood.

Plant Performance & Operations Finance

• Serve as the Finance partner to plant leadership and provide financial insight to support operational decision-making.
• Lead regular reporting and review sessions with Operations to evaluate key plant performance metrics.
• Provide financial and analytical support related to yield, labor efficiency and utilization, throughput, dumps, packaging consumption, downtime, production mix, and manufacturing margin.
• Conduct ad hoc production-floor testing to validate reported yields, labor requirements, packaging consumption, labor standards, and other operating metrics.
• Partner with Operations and Continuous Improvement to identify opportunities to improve productivity, margin, manufacturing efficiency, and cost control.
• Translate financial results into understandable operational information and help plant leadership understand the financial impact of operational decisions.
• Respond quickly to emerging issues in a fast-moving manufacturing environment and drive timely resolution rather than allowing issues to accumulate.

Financial Reporting & Analysis

• Prepare and provide timely plant-level financial analysis and reporting to Finance and Operations leadership.
• Analyze financial results and identify significant trends, risks, opportunities, and areas requiring management attention.
• Support month-end close activities related to manufacturing, inventory, costing, accruals, and plant operations.
• Ensure plant financial information is complete, accurate, timely, and supported by underlying operational activity.
• Assist with budgeting, forecasting, financial planning, audits, and special projects as required.
• Provide ad hoc financial analysis and reporting to support business decisions.

Systems & Process Improvement

• Develop and maintain strong working knowledge of the Company's ERP system, including manufacturing, inventory, and costing modules.
• Review the quality and completeness of operational and financial data used in plant reporting.
• Identify system, process, and reporting issues that impact the accuracy or timeliness of financial information.
• Recommend improvements to processes, controls, reporting, and system utilization.
• Identify opportunities to automate reporting and improve visibility into plant performance.
• Partner with Finance, Operations, and other departments to implement sustainable process improvements.

Cross-Functional Partnership

• Build strong working relationships with Plant Managers, Operations leadership, Maintenance, Procurement, Supply Chain, Continuous Improvement, and Corporate Finance.
• Serve as a trusted financial resource to plant leadership while maintaining appropriate financial controls and accountability.
• Communicate financial findings clearly to both financial and non-financial audiences.
• Provide constructive challenge when operational activity or financial results do not align with expectations.
• Promote a culture of accountability, accuracy, continuous improvement, and financial discipline throughout plant operations.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in accounting, Finance, or a related field required.
• 5–8+ years of progressive accounting or finance experience, with at least 3 years of meaningful experience in cost accounting, plant finance, manufacturing accounting, or a similar operational finance environment.
• Strong knowledge of standard costing, inventory accounting, manufacturing variances, physical inventory controls, product costing, and manufacturing accruals.
• Demonstrated experience managing periodic inventory processes, including cycle counts, reconciliations, physical inventories, and inventory adjustments.
• Ability to travel between our Baltimore, MD. and Hanover, MD. campus.
• Experience maintaining manufacturing standards and investigating inventory discrepancies and manufacturing variances.
• Experience performing or coordinating plant-level testing, including yield, labor, material usage, packaging, or other manufacturing studies.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to independently investigate issues, identify root causes, and drive corrective action.
• Ability to understand the relationship between operational activity and financial results.
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to work effectively with both Finance and Operations leadership.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, changing manufacturing environment and prioritize competing deadlines.
• Candidates must successfully pass post-offer/pre-employment drug test, and background screen. 

Work Environment & Position Expectations:

• This position works in both office and operating environments and requires routine interaction with production, warehouse, maintenance, and other operational areas.
• Regular presence on the production floor is an important component of the position.
• The role may require the use of required personal protective equipment and adherence to all safety, food safety, quality, sanitation, and security requirements when entering operating areas.
• The position must be able to work additional hours as business needs require, particularly during month-end close, budgeting, forecasting, physical inventory, audit, and special-project periods.
• The position requires the ability to investigate operational activity firsthand and validate financial information against actual production processes.
• Regular and reliable attendance is an essential function of the position.
• The employee is expected to maintain confidentiality of financial, operational, employee, and other proprietary Company information.
• Work is performed in and around industrial machinery, production equipment, warehouse areas, and processing environments.
• Exposure to refrigerated and cold-storage areas. Warehouse bays may be maintained at approximately 32°F or below, with certain areas maintained at temperatures below 0°F.
• Position requires the ability to tolerate exposure to cold temperatures for periods while performing required job duties on the plant floor.
• Work environment may include exposure to varying temperatures, noise, moisture, odors, wet surfaces, and other conditions commonly associated with food manufacturing and processing operations.

What Makes this Opportunity Different:

This is an opportunity for a finance professional to have a direct and visible impact on a growing manufacturing operation. The Plant Controller will work closely with plant leadership and Finance leadership and will have the opportunity to influence inventory controls, costing standards, manufacturing efficiency, financial reporting, and operational performance.

Rather than being limited to traditional accounting functions, this role provides broad exposure across manufacturing finance and the opportunity to build and improve processes, strengthen controls, and connect financial results directly to what is happening on the production floor.

The ideal candidate will be someone who is curious, analytical, hands-on, and willing to ask questions when the numbers do not make sense. This individual should enjoy solving problems, working cross-functionally, and turning financial information into actionable operational improvements.

Holly Poultry, Inc. and its subsidiaries are Equal Employment Opportunity employers. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all qualified applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, protected veteran status, or any other status protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

Holly Poultry, Inc. and its subsidiaries prohibit discrimination and harassment and are committed to maintaining a workplace where all individuals are treated with dignity and respect.