Interim QA Lead - Norwich, United Kingdom - Fischer Farms Ltd

Description

Job Title:
QA Lead (Interim)
Job Category:Temp Contact


Department/Group:
Technical
Reports to Technical Manager


Location:
Farm 2, Norwich
Travel Required:No
Type:Full-time


About Fischer Farms

Fischer Farms began in 2017 in Tristan Fischer's home as an experiment and is now poised to be the leader in Vertical Farming, a revolutionary approach to growing short leafy green plants.

From the first trials in a shipping container, Fischer Farms now has Farm 1, 3000 sq metres of automated growing space.

This has acted as a live trial to perfect the process before launching Farm 2, 25000 sq metres, producing 6.5 tonnes of food per day.

It is one of the largest vertical farms with rights to expand to 75,000 sq metres farm and become the world's largest.

The unique advantages of vertical farming are suddenly coming into sharp focus for manufacturers, suppliers and retailers. So much so, that the sector is preparing for a huge boom in interest and investment.

The vertical farming method is to grow Produce indoors stacked vertically under LED lights,
(hydroponics) with a plant's roots typically suspended in nutrient-rich water or mist. Temperature, humidity and light is carefully regulated within the sealed environment, and more plants can be packed into a space, on racks that can be seven stories high.


The key benefits are:

• Sustainable, locally sourced produce that minimises food miles
• Uses a fraction of the land required for fieldgrown crops
• An automated, climatecontrolled environment operating 365 days a year
• Yields times greater than conventional British farmland
• Grown in a water solution no soil required
• 3% of water of a conventional farm (water circulates in closed environment)
• Crop is not weatherdependent

The market opportunity for vertical farms is huge.

Barclays Research analysts estimate the size of the global fruit & vegetable market is roughly $1.2tn (£800bn) and calculate that the addressable produce market for vertical farms is closer to $700bn (£513bn), leading to an approximately $50bn (£36.7bn) market opportunity.

The aim of Fischer is to harness this technology to produce mass volume, that can feed the world rather than targeting the premium end of the market.

Over time, the company will be looking to grow rice and wheat on vertical farms.

Given the ground-breaking nature of the business, Fischer has been designing and developing its own equipment and has significant IP as well as unique plant development expertise.

Fischer already has interest from a major supermarket who see them as the most commercially minded out of all the vertical farms they have seen.

Focusing on volume, they will be able to beat field grown crops in terms of price. Part of the reduced cost model is developing renewable sources of energy which

currently accounts for 80% of growing costs; a solar farm is already being developed that will considerably reduce this, as well as the carbon footprint.

Fischer Farms is now making multiple key appointments to take the business through its next massive growth phase.

We are looking for people you can share this vision of the future and help scale up the business to be a global player.

CEO Tristan Fischer feels that it is vital that all team members share a set of key values: honesty and
Integrity, high ethical standards, open and transparent, embracing a culture of sharing and listening to ideas. These will continue to be part of the DNA of the business.


Job Purpose
The QA Lead would be responsible for auditing and training activities to satisfy the site compliance plan.


ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Ensure a proactive approach to process and system control/management through educating the broader team;
• Conduct product testing on incoming raw materials and finished goods;
• Monitor and trend product quality, identifying improvements and working with other functions(Operations, Process, NPD Engineering and Raw Materials) to deliver company objectives;
• Ensure daily / weekly / monthly QA scheduled tasks (i.e. GMP, calibrations, audits and sampling) are completed on time and subsequent actions are followed up;
• Conduct investigations into nonconformance (i.e. incidents, analytical testing, audits and customer complaints) and agree corrective actions and measure effectiveness;
• Support process trials;
• Ensure new products, processes and equipment are smoothly integrated into everyday operation and fully supported by the Quality Management system (i.e. agreed quality parameters, updates schedules& QA tasks, Quality Management System SOPs).

REQUIREMENTS

• Engineering or similar discipline qualification;
• Pragmatic, adaptable and resilient;
• A proven track record of QA, systems management or HACCP in food manufacturing;
• Strong understanding of production and packing processes;
• Working knowledge of process capability and target setting;
• Hungry for a challenge and keen to build something fro