Manager, Contract Manufacturing - Chomps
Chicago, IL
About the Job
Who We Are
We're Chomps, the fastest-growing meat snack brand reimagining best-for-you snacking. Made from the highest quality, humanely raised proteins, no sugar, and only real ingredients, we make snacking simple, delicious, and nutritious. Chomps can be found in over 20,000 stores nationwide with a strong e-commerce presence. Our mission is to inspire, educate, and fuel our community with accessible, sustainable, and real food that tastes great.
Traits of a Chompian
If you've been called scrappy, resourceful, and persistent, then you might just be a Chompian. You're a team player who's self-motivated and action-oriented. You're committed to delivering efficiency and accuracy, and you happen to be great at proactive cross-functional communication. You're a critical thinker and a natural problem solver who enjoys details, research, and data. You take initiative and complete ownership of everything you do, and you'll go the extra mile for your team, consumers, and audience. You're hungry to learn with a passion to grow and improve every day. You also take a keen interest in health, fitness, and nutrition. Sound like you? Then we want to meat you.
What You Will Do
We are looking for a dynamic, collaborative and passionate person to join the team as Contract Manufacturing Manager. Your primary responsibility will be to oversee the management of our third party (3P) co-manufacturing partners and work with them to plan capacity, ensure material availability, and produce consistent product to defined standards. You are ultimately responsible for quality, efficiency and on-time delivery of all Chomps products. You will collaborate with leadership, internal functions, and manage key 3P co-manufacturing stakeholders. You will be a game changer by driving manufacturing excellence and implementing your recommendations to achieve continuous quality, process, throughput, and cost structure improvements.
Responsibilities
- Own 3P co-manufacturing day to day operation
- Develop and maintain positive relationships across all levels at our 3P co-manufacturing partners
- Operate with a LEAN mindset to continuously improve quality, performance, and cost
- Facilitate weekly production planning sessions and KPI scorecard review meetings and Quarterly Business Reviews
- Establish KPIs and ensure supplier performance tracking against defined KPIs via supplier scorecard
- Collaborate with QA and R&D to lead new product and facility start-ups
- Ensure all company owned equipment are proactively maintained and properly serviced
- Support the assessment, selection and startup of new 3P co-manufacturing partners
- Lead equipment and facility capex initiatives
- Travel as necessary to existing and potential 3P co-manufacturing locations
Who You Are
- Bachelors degree in engineering, business, supply chain operations or related field
- Minimum of 4+ years of experience in manufacturing operations, including 3P management and continuous improvement practices
- Ability to travel 2-3 times per month to various 3P co-manufacturing locations (75% of the time)
- Prior industry experience in food manufacturing required
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office (with emphasis in Excel), ERP (cloud based is a plus), and MES
- Strong analytical, problem-solving, and continuous improvement skills with demonstrated success in driving results through influential leadership and lean manufacturing tools
- Outstanding communication (both verbal and written) and relationship management skills
- Excellent interpersonal, negotiation and conflict resolution skills
- USDA and meat experience preferred
- Experience with commercial ovens and thermoforming packaging equipment preferred
- Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail
Position: Manager, Contract Manufacturing
Reports to: Director, Manufacturing
Location: Flexible / Remote + Travel
Type: Full-Time, exempt
Salary Range Opportunity:
- The salary range for this role is $120,000 - $125,000 + 20% annual bonus
Compensation Philosophy & Total Comp:
- Our salary ranges are based on verified market data and our philosophy of paying competitively for our size and industry
- Individual pay rate decisions are based on several factors, including qualifications for the role, experience level, skillset, and balancing internal equity relative to peers at the company
- In addition to base salary, full-time team members receive medical, dental, and vision insurance, 401K 6% match, and monthly reimbursements for wellness and home office.
Other Perks:
- Ability to make an impact: Join a rapidly growing and entrepreneurial-spirited team at a pivotal point to positively impact the food industry.
- Opportunities to grow: Advance within Chomps quickly based on outstanding performance.
- Unlimited PTO and 11 paid holiday days. Hybrid & flexible remote schedule. Chicago office open to those in the area.
- Paid maternity and paternity leave.
- Bi-annual total team in-person activities.
- Company-wide Continual Education budget.
- An abundance of snacks: Enough meat sticks that if you wanted to eat your body weight in them you could (no judgment here).
Our Commitment
Chomps is committed to a diverse and inclusive workforce. To achieve our mission of making nutritious food more accessible we greatly benefit from a range of perspectives, which comes from diversity of all types, at all levels of the organization. Achieving true diversity and inclusion is the right thing to do and the smart thing for our business.
We're aware of the research showing that historically underrepresented groups are less likely to apply for a job if they don't believe that they meet all of the criteria. Do you hesitate to submit an application because you believe you need to check every box? Please apply anyway with a thoughtful cover letter! We would love to hear from you to discuss how you can help us build a great team at Chomps.
Important Notice:
It has come to our attention that fraudsters have been posing as Chomps employees or recruiters and contacting job-seeking candidates regarding potential job opportunities. These fraudulent messages sometimes include a request for payment and confidential personal information. Please note that the Chomps recruiting process does not include asking candidates for payments or other confidential financial information.If you are applying for a job, you can confirm the legitimacy of a job posting by viewing current open roles: https://chomps.com/pages/chomps-careers. If you have questions please email us at careers@chomps.com
