The Supplier Quality Specialist is responsible for maintaining and advancing Home Chef’s supplier controls program by ensuring safe, compliant, and high-quality ingredient sourcing across all product lines. This role supports day-to-day supplier approval, documentation, and deviation management, while also driving system-level improvements that enable scale, traceability, and proactive risk mitigation. Working cross-functionally with Food Supply Chain, Culinary, New Product Devlopment, and Operations, the role ensures that vendor-related risks are identified, addressed, and communicated clearly across the organization. This position reports into the FSQA Product & Regulatory function and plays a key role in enabling compliant innovation while protecting the customer experience.

Detailed Responsibilities

Supplier Non-Conformance Management:

• Review, document, and track all supplier-related non-conformances and rejections logged at Home Chef sites across both Core and Tempo products.
• Communicate directly with suppliers to request investigation reports and corrective actions in response to recurring or critical non-conformances.
• Partner with Procurement to ensure supplier accountability and performance expectations are enforced through corrective action follow-up.
• Escalate high-severity or repeat deviations to FSQA leadership with recommendations for sourcing, labeling, or specification changes.
• Maintain the non-conformance tracker and utilize data to inform business reviews, supplier scorecards, and trend reports.

Supplier Quality Vendor Onboarding Documentation and Specification:

• Collaborate with the Food Supply Chain team to onboard new vendors and ensure all required food safety documentation is submitted and approved prior to launch.
• Review supplier specifications for alignment with Home Chef’s standards and coordinate revisions when gaps are identified.
• Ensure allergen, nutrition, and regulatory documentation is received and uploaded into appropriate systems for all new ingredients.
• Partner with NPD, Culinary, and Food Supply Chain to validate documentation during rapid development cycles and supplier transitions.
• Maintain logs and records of onboarding status, documentation approvals, and open items to ensure audit readiness and timely launches.

Site Support for Received Product Deviations and Rejections

• Respond to site-level rejections and temperature deviations related to ingredient and packaging materials.
• Investigate root cause in collaboration with Operations, Supply Chain, and suppliers, and identify if the issue is isolated or systemic.
• Provide guidance to site FSQA teams on documentation protocols and resolution pathways for supplier-related issues.
• Coordinate special sampling and temporary use decisions with Product FSQA, Culinary, and Quality leadership.
• Track rejections by site, supplier, and product to identify patterns and prioritize systemic solutions.

Product Inventory Shelf-Life Extension Reviews:

• Review incoming requests for shelf-life extensions and validate through documentation, product type, and storage condition verification.
• Collaborate with Procurement and Culinary to determine whether extensions are appropriate based on risk level, quality parameters, and formulation.
• Track and record all extension decisions, rationale, and affected lot numbers to ensure traceability.
• Escalate product categories or suppliers with frequent shelf-life extension needs to FSQA and Procurement for root cause evaluation.
• Support the development of SOPs and guidance documentation for consistent review standards and decision-making criteria.

TraceGains Platform Management:

• Manage supplier onboarding and document approvals within TraceGains, ensuring ingredient and vendor data is complete and current.
• Approve, request revisions, or reject documentation submitted by suppliers based on FSQA criteria and Home Chef’s regulatory standards.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to resolve discrepancies in documentation or TraceGains profiles that affect production, labeling, or compliance.
• Maintain accuracy in TraceGains data fields related to allergens, nutritionals, and supplier certifications.
• Support expansion of TraceGains usage across FSQA and Procurement by training users and documenting workflows.

Qualifications

The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability needed for this role. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities.

• Completion of a four-year degree program in a related field: Business, Engineering, Biology, or related field
• Minimum 2-4 years of working experience, understanding of food safety and quality assurance programs preferred
• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal
• Strong ability to influence others
• Demonstrated project management experience
• Comfort with Google Suite (Sheets, Slides, Forms); comfort with Google scripts a plus
• Working knowledge of quality and food safety programs; including FDA, USDA, FSMA, GFSI
• Comfort with telling stories through data analysis
• This position may require time traveling and visiting Home Chef fulfillment centers up to 50%

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