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Salary: USD 110,000 - 147,000 / annual
Sweetgreen is seeking a Senior Food Safety Manager to serve as the technical authority on food safety across the restaurant chain. This role owns food safety strategy and program design company-wide, serves as the subject matter expert for restaurant teams on complex and high-risk issues, and carries direct responsibility for food safety performance in the New York City Region.
Key Responsibilities:
- Set food safety strategy, program standards, and priorities for sweetgreen, partnering with company leadership on major initiatives from concept through measurable results, using risk, audit, and regulatory data to focus effort and investment.
- Serve as the technical authority for the Food Safety team, guiding regional partners on complex investigations, high-risk escalations, and consistent application of standards across the fleet.
- Own food safety performance for the NYC Region, partnering directly with operators to deliver world-class standards and maintain compliance with federal, state, and local regulatory requirements.
- Own the NYC Region's third-party audit and pest control programs, reviewing audit results, sanitation violations, customer complaints, temperature monitoring, and pest activity, and driving corrective action to completion.
- Build systems the function runs on, including SOPs, training materials, crisis management protocols, and reporting that tracks food safety and quality performance and surfaces risk early.
- Build and maintain relationships with local health departments, guiding operators through inspections and violations, and keeping sweetgreen current on regulatory changes and industry best practice.
- Keep open lines with partners across the company to surface food safety and quality issues early and turn them into continuous improvement opportunities.
Desired Traits:
- Deep technical expert with command of pathogens and microbes associated with food production, microbiological testing, HACCP, SOPs, and government and industry regulations.
- Influential without authority; able to build credibility with operators and executives and move standards forward through expertise and relationships.
- Problem solver who leads with root cause analysis and continuous process improvement.
- Data fluent, comfortable working in food safety management and reporting systems.
- Clear communicator who can move between restaurant walkthroughs and executive readouts.
- Trusted partner who builds strong working relationships with local health departments and across internal functions.
- Generous with knowledge and motivated by coaching and raising capability of others.
- Self-directed operator with high integrity who takes initiative and delivers with limited oversight.
- Comfortable with travel up to 75% of the time and energized by time in restaurants.
Requirements:
- 10+ years in food safety or quality assurance, ideally in a multi-unit restaurant or QSR environment.
- Track record building and scaling food safety programs across a growing footprint.
- Direct experience owning third-party audit programs and regulatory relationships.
- Experience serving as the technical escalation point for a distributed team or field organization.
- Bachelor of Science degree; preference for Food Science, Microbiology, Biological Science, or a related discipline.
- Experience influencing senior leaders on decisions that carry operational and financial consequence.
