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Plant Director

Ventura Foods · Birmingham, AL

Level
Director+
Team
Production
Travel
5%
Degree
Required
Experience asked
10+ years
Industry
Food & beverage
Posted
Recently

The role in 30 seconds

A director-level production role at Ventura Foods (food & beverage) in Birmingham, AL.

They ask for
10+ years · degree required
Tools it names
Lean, Six Sigma, OEE, Root cause, FDA / GMP, Automation
Day to day
some off-shift / weekend coverage · about 5% travel

Read from the posting. The full description is below.

From the plant jobs report · week of November 2, 2026

Production Engineer roles in Alabama: typical posted base $80k–$103k.

Median of the low and high ends of 7 live postings that list pay, out of 24 production engineer openings in Alabama, read from manufacturers' own careers sites.

Alabama plant jobs report →Pay by team and state →What moves pay →

How this role compares

Against 23 other live production postings in Alabama.

Base pay
Not listed in this posting

Typical $80k–$103k, from 7 postings that list pay.

Experience asked
More than usual (10+ vs 7+)

Similar roles usually ask 7+ years.

Skills these teams ask for most

  • ✓ Lean 58%
  • ✓ EHS / safety 33%
  • ✓ Root cause 33%
  • Team leadership 33%
  • ✓ Six Sigma 25%
  • Cost reduction 25%

✓ = this posting asks for it too. % = share of similar postings that mention it.

Stands out: this posting asks for OEE, FDA / GMP, MES, which few similar roles mention. If you have it, lead with it.

It asks for 10+ years. If you're close, apply anyway: requirements are a wish list. Talk to someone doing this work there first.

At a glance

Off-shift / weekend coveragePromotion path mentionedLifts up to 50 lbs

Pulled from the posting text. If it's not listed here, the posting didn't say.

How to get in at this plant

Five moves over a week or two. The first one takes ten minutes.

  1. 1

    Pick 2–3 people on the Production team at Ventura Foods

    Engineers who joined in the last year or two reply the most. Use the team search on this page to find them.

  2. 2

    Send a short, curious note

    One real question about their work. No favors yet. Each person gets a different note, written for this role.

  3. 3

    Turn a reply into a short call

    Questions worth asking about this team:

    • What does a normal week look like on your team?
    • How does off-shift and weekend coverage work?
    • The posting says about 5% travel. Between which sites?
    • How did you land the job? What stood out in your interviews?
  4. 4

    Apply with someone vouching for you

    If the call went well, ask whether they’d pass your résumé to the hiring manager. Send your résumé link, apply that day, and let them know.

  5. 5

    Bring proof to the interview

    One page of before-and-after numbers from projects you led: scrap, OEE, cycle time, cost. Plant managers hire on results.

This plant: Ventura Foods in Birmingham

4 other open roles at this site.

Full description from Ventura FoodsAs posted on their careers site.Show

Position Summary

Lead the end-to-end performance of the manufacturing plant and distribution operations. Build an engaged, accountable organization that safely produces compliant, high-quality products at the required service, cost, and volume. Balance daily execution with long-term capability building through reliability, capital planning, continuous improvement, data-driven management, and cross-functional partnership.

Responsibilities

  • ◆Service: Direct production, warehousing, and distribution execution across all shifts. Translate demand into achievable plans and use daily management routines to deliver schedule attainment, case fill, order fill, and customer commitments.
  • ◆Cost: Own the site operating plan, forecasts, and controllable spending. Improve conversion cost, labor productivity, material usage, utilities, destroyed product, overhead, inventory, and working capital while protecting safety, quality, service, and long-term capability.
  • ◆Quality/ Food Safety: Ensure food safety, product quality, sanitation, allergen, traceability, recall, and preventive-control programs meet company, customer, FDA, and applicable regulatory requirements. Maintain audit readiness and promptly escalate material risk.
  • ◆EHS: Lead the site safety, health, and environmental management system. Model visible safety leadership; ensure employee participation, hazard identification and control, training, emergency preparedness, contractor safety, incident investigation, and timely corrective action.
  • ◆Asset Management/ Maintenance Reliability: Establish the asset-care and reliability strategy, including preventive and predictive maintenance, spare-parts discipline, utilities, facilities, and grounds. Improve OEE and downtime performance and maintain safe, reliable plant infrastructure.
  • ◆Capital Management & Execution: Develop and execute the site capital roadmap. Build sound business cases; manage scope, budget, schedule, change control, safe installation, commissioning, and benefits realization for capital and engineering projects.
  • ◆People Leadership: Select, coach, develop, and retain an effective leadership team and frontline workforce. Set clear goals, strengthen technical capability, conduct talent and succession reviews, administer policies consistently, and promote an inclusive, high-accountability culture.
  • ◆Operational Excellence: Build a fact-based continuous-improvement system using Lean problem solving, standard work, visual management, and verified savings. Sponsor loss elimination, automation, digital tools, and data-quality improvements and ensure gains are sustained.
  • ◆Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with Supply Chain, Procurement, Quality, R&D, Engineering, Sales, Finance, and HR to balance capacity, inventory, service, and cost. Govern plant trials, product transfers, and launches for safe, capable, and profitable scale-up.
  • ◆Other: Maintain business continuity and crisis-response readiness. Manage environmental obligations and relationships with regulators, customers, suppliers, contractors, carriers, emergency responders, and community stakeholders; communicate site performance and risks transparently.

Education and Experience

  • ✓Bachelor’s degree, is required
  • ✓10+ years of progressive manufacturing experience, including significant leadership of multi-function operations, is required
  • ✓Demonstrated ownership of plant safety, food safety and quality, customer service, budgets, cost improvement, workforce planning, maintenance/reliability, capital projects, and KPI management, is required
  • ✓Travel up to 5%
  • ✓MBA or relevant graduate degree is preferred
  • ✓Food or beverage manufacturing and high-volume or automated operations strongly preferred
  • ✓Lean or Six Sigma; HACCP; PCQI when assigned responsibility requires it; and SQF, BRCGS, or other GFSI-scheme experience, is helpful

requirements

of the position for which you are applying.

Typical shifts are 8-12 hours per day. Additional unscheduled time after hours and on weekends may also be required. Employees must be willing and able to wear personal protective equip

Show full description ↓

​Location: Birmingham

Employment Type: Salaried

Work Arrangement: Onsite

Knowledge and Skills

  • •Enterprise-minded manufacturing leader with strong business judgment and the ability to convert strategy into disciplined plant execution
  • •Working knowledge of food-safety systems, preventive controls, GMPs, sanitation, allergen management, quality systems, EHS, maintenance and reliability, capital delivery, production planning, warehousing, and distribution
  • •Skilled in financial analysis, root-cause problem solving, lean management, organizational development, labor and employee relations, crisis leadership, and change management
  • •Demonstrated ability to use ERP/MES systems, production and quality data, visual management, and performance analytics to make timely decisions
  • •Communicates clearly with frontline employees, executives, customers, regulators, and external partners

Why Join Us

Ventura Foods offers career growth opportunities as well as competitive compensation and benefits:​

  • •Medical, Prescription, Dental, & Vision – coverage beginning on your 1st day for eligible employees​
  • •Profit Sharing and 401(k) matching (after eligible criteria is met)​
  • •Paid Vacation, Sick Time, and Holidays​
  • •Employee Appreciation Events​ and Employee Assistance Programs
  • •Annual bonus (based on the incentive program terms and conditions)

Physical Demands

All jobs require sufficient physical strength and dexterity to perform the required task(s) and typically also require at a minimum: intermittent sitting, standing, walking, climbing, squatting, kneeling, pushing, and pulling. Occasional lifting and/or moving up to 50 pounds or more with assistance may also be required. Please see the job description for specific requirements.

Work Environment

Please see the job description for specific

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