{"id":1072409,"url":"https://alion.io/job/43north-foodnerd-operations-manager","title":"FoodNerd - Operations Manager","company":{"id":705953,"name":"43North","domain":"43north.org","url":"https://alion.io/company/43north-2","size_band":"501-1000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Gem","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":4,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-10-25T05:49:26Z"}},"role":"Management","role_family":"Management","seniority":"middle","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Buffalo, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":80000,"max":100000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":100000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":3,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"GMP","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-18T16:07:13Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-18","last_verified_at":"2026-10-25T22:00:36Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":37,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":37},"description":"About FoodNerd:\nFoodNerd is a fast-growing food company based in Buffalo, New York, making organic, nutrient-dense foods using innovative processing methods designed to preserve the nutrients naturally found in our ingredients.\nWe sprout our own vegetable seeds, combine sprouts with real fruit ingredients, cold mold our products, freeze-dry them, package them, and ship them from our Buffalo facility. We’re still early in our journey, and that’s important.\nWe’re building and improving our manufacturing operation while we’re running it. Our equipment will change. Our technology will change. Our systems will change. The way we manufacture today won’t necessarily be the way we manufacture a year from now. We’re looking for an Operations Manager who thinks that’s exciting.\nThe Role:\nThe Operations Manager is the on-site leader responsible for making sure our production\noperation performs every day. You’ll report directly to the COO and oversee a growing team of approximately 20-30 people\nacross two shifts, with four direct reports: a Sprouting Lead and Production Lead on each shift. This is not a desk job.\nWe expect you to spend approximately 90% of your time gowned up and on the production floor. You should know what’s happening in the facility because you’re there watching it happen, talking to the team, identifying problems, and making sure we’re executing against the plan. You’ll have significant ownership from day one. You’ll determine what we need to produce, set the daily production schedule, manage labor and productivity, monitor yield and scrap, minimize downtime, maintain inventory accuracy, oversee warehouse and shipping operations, and make sure the data in our ERP accurately reflects what’s happening on the floor.\nYou’ll also work closely with our Quality team to ensure our production processes and people consistently execute against our food safety and quality standards. When something isn’t working, we don’t just want you to report the problem. We want you to pull the thread, figure out why, and help solve it.\nWhat You’ll Own:\nProduction\nOwn daily production execution across both shifts, from sprouting through cold molding, freeze drying, packaging, and finished goods.\nUse our ERP and your knowledge of what’s happening on the floor to determine what needs to be produced and when, including managing upstream and downstream constraints throughout the production process.\nSet and communicate daily production schedules and ensure the team executes against them.\nOwn production output and schedule attainment, labor productivity, yield, scrap, and downtime.\nIdentify bottlenecks as they develop and take action to keep production moving.\nPeople\nLead four direct reports and oversee a growing production organization of approximately 20-30 people across two shifts. Set clear expectations and hold people accountable for meeting them. Coach and train team members when needed, provide feedback on performance, and work with other leaders on personnel decisions. Be willing to jump into the process yourself when the operation needs help. Leadership at FoodNerd doesn’t mean managing from an office.\nInventory, Warehouse, & Shipping:\nOwn inventory accuracy across the facility. Ensure receiving, material movements, work-in-process, and finished goods are accurately tracked in our systems. \nOversee physical inventory counts and help identify and resolve discrepancies.\nOversee warehouse and shipping operations, including fulfillment of retail and e-commerce orders as applicable.\nSystems & Data:\nEnsure production data is entered into our ERP accurately and on time, whether you’re entering it yourself or training and holding team members accountable for doing it.\nAccurate data isn’t administrative housekeeping here. It’s how we run the business.\nOur COO operates remotely and makes decisions based heavily on what our systems show.\nPart of your job is making sure the digital picture of our operation matches what’s actually happening on the production floor.\nWhen the data doesn’t make sense, don’t ignore it. Pull the thread, understand what’s happening, and solve the underlying problem.\nContinuous Improvement:\nWe don’t believe “that’s how we’ve always done it” is a particularly useful answer. We’re entering a stage of growth where, in many cases, we’ve never done it before.\nYou’ll constantly look for better ways to operate.\nOur approach is simple:\nLook at a process and identify a better way to do it.\nImplement the better way.\nTest it.\nEvaluate the results.\nKeep the improvement if it works, or go back and try something else if it doesn’t.\nStandardize successful improvements and train the team.\n\nThat might mean improving a production process, changing a layout, reducing waste, solving an equipment bottleneck, developing a new SOP, improving an ERP workflow, automating a manual process, or finding an entirely different way to solve a problem. You’ll also help develop, document, implement, and enforce SOPs and standard work throughout the facility.\nThis Job Is for You If You Love:\nHaving a visible impact on the business every single day.\nBeing an impact player at a growing company where your ideas can actually change how the operation works.\nBuilding systems instead of simply inheriting them.\nSolving problems. You don’t need to already know every answer, but you need to be someone who will figure it out.\nWorking somewhere where no two days are exactly the same.\nBeing on the floor and close to the work rather than managing through spreadsheets and meetings.\nLeading people, setting clear expectations, and holding your team accountable.\nRolling up your sleeves and helping when there’s a bottleneck or the team needs you.\nUsing data and common sense together.\nUsing AI as a tool to learn, troubleshoot, research, and solve problems you haven’t encountered before.\nLooking at a piece of equipment, process, or system you don’t understand and thinking, “I can figure this out.”\nQuestioning whether there’s a better way instead of accepting “that’s how we’ve always done it.”\nCommunicating comfortably with everyone from a production employee to the CEO and COO.\nChange. Our priorities, equipment, processes, technology, systems, and even our organization\nwill continue to evolve as we grow. If that sounds energizing rather than frustrating, you’ll probably like it here.\nWhat You’ll Bring:\nWe’re more interested in finding the right person than checking boxes on a résumé.\nWe’re generally looking for someone with:\nApproximately 3-5 years of hands-on manufacturing or production leadership experience, or equivalent experience demonstrating that you’re ready for this level of ownership.\nExperience directly leading people in a production environment.\nComfort working with ERP systems, entering production information, and reading operational reports.\nStrong problem-solving skills and a willingness to dig into problems rather than simply escalate them.\nComfort using AI tools as part of how you learn and solve problems.\nA track record of identifying opportunities to improve processes and actually implementing those improvements.\nThe ability and willingness to spend the large majority of your day on the production floor.\nThe flexibility to work across our two production shifts as the needs of the business require.\nExperience in food manufacturing or another GMP-regulated manufacturing environment is strongly preferred.\nExperience with FDA GMP requirements, food safety, traceability, lot control, or SQF is a significant plus.\nA particular degree isn’t required. We’re hiring the person, not the paper.\nAn Opportunity to Grow With Us:\nThis isn’t necessarily the job we expect you to have forever.\nWe’re building FoodNerd for significant growth, and as the company scales, the size, complexity, and leadership needs of our operations organization will grow with it.\nFor the right person, this role can be an opportunity to take a major step forward early in your career. Someone joining us today after several years as a Production Supervisor could grow well beyond an Operations Manager role as the company expands. We don’t promise titles on a timeline. We do believe in giving exceptional people more responsibility as quickly as they demonstrate they’re ready for it. If FoodNerd grows the way we believe it can, someone who excels in this position could find themselves one, two, or even three levels higher in the organization within the next several\nyears. If you’re looking for a mature organization where the next step on the career ladder is already defined, this may not be the right opportunity.\nIf you want the chance to help build that ladder, and potentially climb it quickly, we’d love to talk.\nSchedule & Location\nThis is a full-time, salaried, on-site position at our Buffalo, New York manufacturing facility.\nOur current production operation runs two shifts:\n6:00 AM-2:00 PM\n2:00 PM-10:00 PM\nYour schedule will flex across both shifts based on the needs of the operation. We aren’t looking for someone to punch a clock at the same time every day. We’re looking for the person responsible for knowing what’s happening across the operation and making sure the team succeeds.\nCompensation:\nExpected base salary: $80,000-$100,000, depending on experience. We’re intentionally open-minded about the person we hire. If you’re an exceptional candidate who can make an outsized impact on FoodNerd, we’re willing to have a conversation beyond that range.","description_format":"text","description_chars":9451,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":3,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Angel Networks & Startup Accelerators"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-20T03:19:39Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":37,"band":"fade","label":"Fading","p_open":1,"p_active":0.679,"p_room":0.55,"age_days":36,"expected_fill_days":29,"reasons":["conf:3","win:tail"],"computed_at":"2026-10-25T05:49:26Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":100000,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/43north-foodnerd-operations-manager","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/43north-foodnerd-operations-manager.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-26T00:58:12Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":1176,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-27T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":705953},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=705953"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2F43north-foodnerd-operations-manager"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2F43north-foodnerd-operations-manager"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2F43north-foodnerd-operations-manager"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/43north-foodnerd-operations-manager\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2F43north-foodnerd-operations-manager"}]}