Area Manager

About the role

The Area Manager, Melbourne is responsible for a portfolio of food and beverage manufacturing sites across metropolitan Melbourne, spanning service delivery, Site Manager development, safety and compliance, and cost control. This role owns the portfolio in full and is accountable for every site in it being handed back to production clean, compliant and audit ready, every shift. The portfolio spans beef and pork processing, red meat processing, poultry, ready to eat and high care, smallgoods and value adding. This is a manager of managers.

Key responsibilities

• Run a portfolio of four to six sites to one consistent standard, holding each Site Manager to the SGA Site Manager role and KPI framework rather than delivering the shift personally

• Be on site across the portfolio every week, visiting or structurally touching every site at the agreed frequency, weekly for sites under pressure and at least fortnightly for stable sites, including at least two unannounced night visits each week

• Hold a fortnightly one on one with every Site Manager, structured around what is working, what is blocked and what is next, and record the outcome in the shared log

• Coach and develop Site Managers, identifying who is ready to step up, who needs support and who is not performing, and act on each inside the agreed timeframe

• Own site level recruitment across the portfolio with recruitment, HR and training support, advertising, screening and hiring against documented selection criteria and SGA's equal opportunity obligations

• Oversee daily pre operational inspection and reporting discipline through SafetyCulture iAuditor at every site, holding the standard on Site Manager commentary and enforcing the shift photo evidence policy

• Maintain 100% training and right to work compliance across the portfolio through TalentLMS and vSure, escalating any gap in the week it appears

• Own the regional safety picture, aggregating incidents, identifying trends across sites, recommending systemic corrective actions, escalating serious incidents to head office immediately, and reviewing every site investigation report for quality and completeness

• Coordinate audit readiness ahead of client, retailer and certification audits including SQF, BRCGS, Coles Food Manufacturing Supplier Requirements (CFMSR), Woolworths Quality Assurance standard (WQA) and ethical audits such as Sedex SMETA

• Manage the portfolio to budget, tracking hours delivered against hours paid, keeping overtime inside target, controlling consumables spend, and signing off the weekly portfolio review

About you

• Proven experience leading frontline teams in a food, beverage or protein manufacturing environment, including rostering, attendance, performance management and safety

• Demonstrated ability to deliver a result through other people rather than by performing the work personally, whether through Site Managers or through 2ICs, leading hands and shift supervisors on a large crew

• Working knowledge of food safety in an Australian manufacturing plant, including HACCP and at least one of SQF, BRCGS, FSSC 22000 or a major retailer standard such as Coles CFMSR or Woolworths WQA

• Sound WHS judgement covering chemical handling and safety data sheets, lock out tag out, confined space, machine guarding and incident investigation

• Practical understanding of cleaning method and chemistry, including foam and gel application, CIP and COP, dilution and titration control, and post clean verification by visual inspection and ATP swabbing

• Ability to manage labour to a budget, read a cost sheet, and identify when a site is running outside the hours it was priced at

• Ability to work a pattern that includes at least two unannounced night or early morning site attendances each week on top of day attendance

• Written English sufficient to produce corrective action responses, incident reports and monthly performance reports that stand up in a customer or certification audit

• A current driver licence valid for driving in Victoria, and willingness to travel between sites and to occasional regional Victorian sites

• The right to work in Australia

About us

Sanikleen Group Australia (SGA) delivers commercial and industrial hygiene programs for the food and beverage manufacturing sector. Fully Australian owned, SGA has been delivering consistent, compliant and audit ready outcomes for over 25 years, with a team of more than 400 staff across sites in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. SGA runs the Compliance Assurance System: daily auditing, cleaning validation, staff training, digital reporting and continuous monitoring. We hold ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001 and ISO 22000 certification, and 100% of our sites are audited daily, meaning a documented pre operational inspection at every site, every production day, before the line is released.