Food Plant Manager (m/f/d) –
with Career Advancement Opportunities (m/f/d)
Southern Germany · HC 2855-01
Our client is an established, internationally active family-owned company in the food industry with multiple production and distribution sites. For many decades, the company has stood for high-quality food products, reliability, innovation, and collaborative partnerships with customers in retail, industry, and other distribution channels. With a modern yet small-to-medium-sized business culture, our client combines long-term thinking with operational excellence. The company’s products enjoy an excellent reputation in the market and are manufactured both under its own brands and as customized solutions for discerning national and international customers. The corporate group possesses broad industrial expertise in food production and is continuously developing its production sites. Quality, product safety, efficiency, and sustainable site development play a central role in this. For a major production site in southern Germany, we are seeking a strong leader with hands-on production experience and a creative mindset to fill the position of Plant Manager. In addition to operational responsibility for the site, the position offers attractive career advancement opportunities. Depending on the candidate’s professional and personal qualifications, there may be opportunities for advancement toward a management position in the medium term.
Responsibilities:
- You will assume overall operational responsibility for an established production site in the food industry with approximately 250 employees and lead the key operational areas
- Your area of responsibility includes, in particular, production, engineering, work planning, logistics, and the relevant interfaces with quality, HR, purchasing, controlling, and corporate management
- You will ensure efficient, stable, high-quality, and cost-effective production processes and consistently refine processes, responsibilities, and key performance indicators
- You will strengthen the second level of management, develop managers, and foster a clear, committed, and motivating leadership culture
- Together with the functional departments, you ensure compliance with all relevant quality, hygiene, safety, environmental, and food safety regulations.
- You will actively shape the site’s future development and provide direction, structure, and accountability in a demanding production environment
- In addition, you oversee technical matters, maintenance activities, and investment and modernization projects in close coordination with senior management
Profile:
- You hold a college degree, e.g., in food technology, production engineering, process engineering, industrial engineering, or a comparable qualification.
- You have several years of leadership experience in a senior production or operations role, such as plant manager, site manager, operations manager, or head of operations.
- Experience in food production is essential—whether in the dairy, fresh foods, deli, convenience foods, frozen foods, baked goods, meat and sausage products, or another FMCG production environment. It is important that you have a solid command of quality, hygiene, audit, and product safety requirements in food manufacturing.
- You have experience leading large teams and managing a second-level management team.
- You are familiar with lean management, continuous improvement (KVP), operational excellence, shop floor management, or comparable improvement approaches.
- You stand out through your presence on the shop floor, clear communication, strong execution skills, and a keen understanding of people, structures, and change processes.
You will assume a key role of responsibility within an established company in the food industry and actively help shape the further development of a major production site. You can expect an environment that is highly relevant to both the site and the corporate group, offering significant autonomy as well as the opportunity to effectively contribute your operational strength, clear leadership, and results-oriented approach. Particularly attractive is the potential for career advancement beyond the role of site manager: Depending on your suitability and successful performance, the position may offer a path toward executive management of the German production company in the medium term. An attractive compensation package and a company car are also included.
If you have any questions about the position, please feel free to contact Patric Heberlein at +49-89-21528687-7 or Nico Scheibenbogen at +49-89-21528687-3 at any time. We look forward to receiving your application for “HC 2855-01”—please use the “Apply Now” button so that we can process your documents securely and in compliance with data protection regulations:
Your contact
Patric Heberlein
Phone: +49-89-21528687-7
ph@heberlein-consultants.de
Note: To improve readability, gender-neutral language has been omitted. This naturally refers to individuals of any gender.
HEBERLEIN CONSULTANTS | Executive Search
+49-89-21528687-0 · info@heberlein-consultants.de
