Food Processing Engineer Jobs in Tennessee (NOW HIRING)

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At Lactalis in the USA, we’re committed to providing meaningful opportunities for our people to learn, grow, and thrive—whether you’re just starting your journey with us or looking to take the next step in your career. From day one, we offer the tools and support to help you succeed.

As the world leader in dairy, Lactalis is a family-owned company with over 85,000 pragmatic and ambitious professionals across the globe. Each day, we’re proud to produce award-winning dairy products that bring people together.

In the US, we proudly offer an unrivaled house of beloved brands, including Galbani® Italian cheeses and ricotta, Président® specialty cheeses and butters, Kraft® natural and grated cheeses, Breakstone’s® cottage cheese, Cracker Barrel®, Black Diamond® cheddar, and Parmalat® milk. Our yogurt portfolio includes siggi’s®, Stonyfield Organic®, Brown Cow™, Oui®, Yoplait®, Go-Gurt®, :ratio®, Green Mountain Creamery®, and Mountain High®, along with a growing family of ethnic favorites like Karoun®, Gopi®, and Arz®.

At Lactalis, we live by our core values—Ambition, Engagement, and Simplicity. We foster a workplace where innovation thrives, diverse perspectives are celebrated, and everyone’s unique background and ideas are valued. Even if you don’t meet every qualification, we encourage you to apply. We want to hear about your PASSION, your STORY, and how your EXPERTISE can help us shape the future of dairy.

From your PASSION to ours

Midwest Yogurt, part of the Lactalis family of companies, is currently hiring a Senior Reliability Engineer based in Murfreesboro, TN.

Murfreesboro is a high performing, multi-platform non-union facility with over 300 employees leading the safe, high-quality production of a wide range of dairy products. This site supports the Midwest Yogurt business across over 10 production lines. The Senior Systems Engineer will be responsible for the strategic oversight, governance, and continuous improvement of quality, compliance, and operational systems within the Murfreesboro Facility.

From your EXPERTISE to our

Key responsibilities for this position include:

• Cultivate Food Safety Culture that is committed to manufacturing safe food that is compliant with internal policy and regulatory requirements.
• Communicate and engage effectively with teams across the site, including but not limited to Maintenance, Production, Quality and Safety.
• Regularly engage with corporate engineering, R&D and business teams to advocate for their system(s) current and future state.
• At the site level partner with leadership to advocate for system investment both Capex and Opex opportunities.
• Execute loss elimination tasks to improve system and equipment reliability through use of continuous improvement processes and problem solving.
• Build learnings into training materials and coaching of the operating team members to increase capability of the broader team.
• Identify and execute cost savings opportunities.
• Actively improve the data and information of the system to increase the ability to model and predict opportunity areas (performance metrics, financial information, data historian, maintenance management system).
• Secure material balance and unit operation expertise on the system(s) to ensure optimal production rates, parameters, and formulas.
• Clearly articulate financial impact to the plant based on business and plant decisions in support of annual financial, capital and capacity planning.
• Oversee data integrity controls and documentation practices to support investigations, audits, and decision-making.
• Champion a strong culture of quality, food safety, and compliance throughout the facility.

From your STORY to ours

Qualified applicants will contribute the following:

• 5+ years of experience within a manufacturing environment (preferably food processing). Experience leading a front-line team is highly preferred.
• Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering or related degree with applicable experience or extensive relevant work experience
• Proven ability to lead and motivate a team, fostering a positive and productive work environment.
• Strong understanding of advanced data and statistical analysis capabilities, GMPs, and relevant quality control regulations.
• General Engineering Principles and Continuous Improvement knowledge
• Excellent communication, organizational, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to flex work schedule when required to support a 24/7 manufacturing operation. This includes weekends and occasional early/late work hours.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple priorities and meet deadlines.

At Lactalis, we offer a comprehensive Total Rewards Program with a variety of affordable benefits and coverage options. We support insurance costs significantly, contribute generously to retirement plans, and offer Paid Time Off from day one. We are committed to your professional growth, providing training and development opportunities, including Education Reimbursement. Join us and grow your career.

Lactalis is an equal employment opportunity employer. We will not discriminate against applicants with regard to any legally-recognized basis including, but not limited to: veteran status, race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, marital status, sexual orientation, and physical or mental disabilities. Further, any division of the Company that is an Affirmative Action Employer will comply with all related legal obligations.