Quality Assurance and Safety Coordinator

Costa Pty Ltd Berry Category is Australia's largest berry producer with multiple sites located across Australia. Costa grows and markets blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and blackberries.

Costa's berry category is proudly at the forefront of genetic and growing innovation.  We grow significant volumes of fruit to supply major retailers in the country, so food quality and safety is paramount. In all that we grow, we're committed to sustainable production and growing.

The Tasmanian operation is looking for passionate Quality Assurance and Safety Coordinator to join the Costa team.  This is a permanent role based in Tasmania.

The role of Quality Assurance and Safety Coordinator provides direction and practical support to the Berry Category in Tasmania regarding Food Safety and Workplace Health and Safety procedures. This role reports to the Quality Assurance and Safety Manager and plays a key role in ensuring that food safety and health and safety matters are managed in line with relevant legislation, company procedures and best practice on all Tasmanian sites.

As a part of a fast-paced team, the Quality Assurance and Safety Coordinator coordinates and implements the operation of the food safety and workplace health and safety functions within the business and drives a positive quality and safety culture. This role provides guidance and support to operations, harvest and post-harvest departments and has regular communication with all departments. The Quality Assurance and Safety Coordinator is responsible for the day-to-day workplace health and safety activities and contributes to maintaining the food safety program. They support the line management team in achieving compliance to external and company procedures, KPI’s and legislative obligations through coaching, training, administration, research, and encouragement. The duties and responsibilities of this job are outlined below and may vary from time to time in line with the needs of the business.

About the opportunity:

You will be responsible for the operation of the Food Safety and Work Health and Safety functions within the Berry Category, across Northwest Tasmania.  This role provides guidance and support to operations, harvest and post-harvest departments and has regular communication with all departments. 

You will be regularly out and about amongst our teams to drive a positive quality and safety culture. This may include, supporting picking crews with quality challenges, undertaking a risk assessment in our pack shed, or supporting with an incident investigation amongst our farm operations teams. You will become a trusted member of the operation and called upon to support a variety of unpredictable situations daily.

During harvest (October to April) work hours must be flexible to accommodate the seasonal demand. This will include some early starts and weekend work. Outside of peak season, working hours will be standard, Monday to Friday.

What we offer:

• Permanent, Full-time position + Base Salary + Superannuation
• Free Access to an Employee Assistant Program
• Opportunities for Learning, Development, and progression
• Opportunities for travel
• Work-life Balance
• Full IT Kit provided
• Annual Performance Review Process
• Pool Car for use during work hours

In this role you will be responsible for the following:

Food Safety:

• Implement proactive documentation changes; keep documentation systems up to date, controlled and perform annual reviews.
• Conduct internal audits, report incidents and audit findings in electronic systems.
• Food Safety Standards: Develop understanding of Global Food Safety Initiative standards that the site currently benchmarks such as Global GAP, Freshcare and HARPS.
• Product Quality: Understanding of product defects and the effects on the end product and ensuring that retail customer specifications are met.
• Conduct incident and hazard monitoring, investigations, and root cause analysis.
• Risk assesses a variety of situations to make critical decisions. 
• Maintain an Internal Audit, Sampling and Testing, Retention and Calibration Schedules.
• Provide strong and consistent messaging and training to large groups of people from all departments across the business.
• Assisting the team in the management of HACCP and pre-requisite programs.

Work Health and Safety:

• Support employees and managers to achieve best practice Safety, Health and Environment by contributing to the implementation of the safety management system and processes.
• Be familiar with, understand and adhere to Company OHS&W policies and procedures in line with the standards of Costa Group and the requirements of the OH&S Act.
• Work in accordance with the policies and procedures of Costa Group, as amended from time to time.
• Contribute by making positive suggestions on improvements to safe work practices.
• Conduct site safety inspections as per the schedule, report outcomes and facilitate corrective actions.
• Incident reporting and investigations.
• Disseminating WHS related information and educational materials to employees
• Provide input into the continual improvement of Return to Work and Injury Management policies, procedures, systems and processes.
• Workers Compensation and return to work coordination
• Actively support injury management and return to work processes and promote the health benefits of good Return to Work outcomes.
• New Employee and Contractor Safety Inductions
• Undertaking risk assessments in collaboration with relevant department manager
• Developing and reviewing SWP’s in collaboration with relevant departments and other regions within the Berry category.
• Liaise with medical practitioners and allied health professionals to achieve the best outcomes for injured workers.

About You:

The successful candidate could have a strong background in both areas, or just one of them. For the right candidate, we are willing to support training in either quality assurance or work health and safety dependent upon previous experience.

We are looking for someone who has experience/qualifications in:

• Work Health and Safety (Tasmania specific experience is beneficial), and/or
• Workers’ compensation legislation and return to work coordination, and/or
• Quality Assurance and Food Safety/HACCP qualifications

In addition, we are looking for candidates with the following:

• Strong literacy and communication skills including experience with SharePoint, Microsoft Word and Excel.
• Qualifications in First Aid and CPR (desired but not essential).
• Strong knowledge of internal auditing and the application of corrective and preventative actions.
• Experience in provide strong and consistent messaging and training to large groups of people.
• Understanding of quality and safety IT systems such as, Sky trust, Caramba & SharePoint administration.
• Ability to balance conflicting priorities.
• A solution focused attitude and a willingness to learn.
• Driver’s license.

For more information on this role, please contact the berries HR team through HRCostaBerry@costagroup.com.au

Applications will close once the right candidate has been selected, so if you wish to be considered, apply now!