Production Supervisor!

Production Supervisor – Food & Beverage Manufacturing

Location: Rockford, Illinois

Salary: $70,000 - $76,000

Position Overview

We are seeking an experienced Production Supervisor to lead daily manufacturing operations within a fast-paced food and beverage production environment. This individual will be responsible for supervising production employees, ensuring safety and quality standards are met, driving operational efficiency, and delivering production goals while maintaining compliance with food manufacturing regulations.

The ideal candidate is a hands-on leader who can motivate teams, solve production challenges, and continuously improve processes while maintaining a strong focus on food safety, employee safety, quality, productivity, and customer satisfaction.

Key Responsibilities

• Supervise, coach, and develop production employees across assigned shifts.
• Lead daily production activities to meet safety, quality, efficiency, and production targets.
• Ensure products are manufactured according to established specifications, SOPs, GMPs, HACCP requirements, and company standards.
• Monitor production schedules, staffing, labor utilization, downtime, yields, and overall line performance.
• Identify and resolve production issues, equipment concerns, quality problems, and process inefficiencies.
• Partner with Maintenance, Quality Assurance, Sanitation, Warehouse, and Operations leadership to ensure smooth production flow.
• Maintain accurate production records, reports, and documentation.
• Enforce company safety policies and promote a strong safety-first culture.
• Ensure compliance with food safety, sanitation, allergen control, and regulatory requirements.
• Conduct shift meetings and communicate production priorities, performance expectations, and operational changes.
• Analyze production performance and implement corrective actions to improve productivity and reduce waste.
• Participate in continuous improvement initiatives, including Lean Manufacturing, 5S, root-cause analysis, and process optimization.
• Manage employee performance, attendance, training, and accountability.
• Support new employee onboarding and ensure employees are properly trained on safety, quality, equipment, and production procedures.
• Maintain a clean, organized, and safe manufacturing environment.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of supervisory or leadership experience in food, beverage, consumer packaged goods, or related manufacturing.
• Strong understanding of food manufacturing processes and production operations.
• Knowledge of GMPs, HACCP, food safety, sanitation, and quality systems.
• Proven ability to lead and motivate production teams.
• Strong problem-solving and decision-making skills.
• Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced manufacturing environment.
• Strong communication, organizational, and leadership skills.
• Experience with production metrics, KPIs, labor management, and continuous improvement preferred.
• Ability to work flexible hours, including nights, weekends, holidays, or rotating shifts as required.

Preferred Skills

• Lean Manufacturing / Continuous Improvement experience
• Experience with ERP or production management systems
• Knowledge of SQF, BRCGS, or other GFSI standards
• Experience with OSHA and workplace safety requirements
• Strong understanding of production scheduling and labor planning
• Bilingual English/Spanish skills are a plus

What You’ll Bring

The successful candidate will be a hands-on, results-driven leader who understands the demands of food and beverage manufacturing. You should be comfortable working directly with production teams, making decisions under pressure, holding employees accountable, and continuously looking for ways to improve safety, quality, productivity, and cost performance.

Key Performance Areas

• Safety performance
• Food safety and quality
• Production output and efficiency
• Labor utilization
• Yield and waste reduction
• Downtime reduction
• Employee engagement and retention
• On-time production
• Continuous improvement

All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, age, color, sex (including pregnancy), religion, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, military status, genetic information, or any other status protected by applicable laws or regulations.

GPAC (Growing People and Companies) is an award-winning search firm specializing in placing quality professionals within multiple industries across the United States since 1990. We are extremely competitive, client-focused and realize that our value is in our ability to deliver the right solutions at the right time.