KIMBERLY A. RACZKA, MSc
Minersville,Pennsylvania
Summary
MANAGEMENT PROFESSIONAL Food/ Feed Safety Subject Matter Expert. Management professional excelling in operational improvements, training & development, and problem resolution for multi-Billion dollar corporations in the manufacturing, food and feed processing, and environmental industries. Talented leader integrating extensive knowledge of diverse industry and regulatory standards into real-world production environments while fostering strong cross-departmental relations and customer satisfaction. Catalyst delivering quantifiable overhead reductions. Strong technical background characterized by lab instrumentation calibration and maintenance, qualitative & quantitative testing, and database management.
Overview
14
14
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Head of Food Safety
The Wenger Group
06.2023 - Current
- Developed food/feed safety programs by leading and driving with accountability all food safety activities to ensure compliance with all local, state, regional and federal food/feed safety regulations.
- Established Food Safety Culture through Food Safety Lunch and Learns.
- Partnered with operations teams to mitigate food safety risks.
- Responsible for validation of all preventive controls, medicated feed compliance, traceability, recall, disposals, and investigations related to feed/ feed safety related incidences.
- Ensure adequate and effective process controls are implemented across network.
- Develop Food Defense & Food Fraud programs.
- Lead and drive feed/food safety as part of operational culture.
- Developed and set vision, mission and objectives along with metrics/ KPIs for Food Safety.
- Established Food Safety Committee and continually evaluate its suitability, adequacy, effectiveness and alignment with business strategy.
- Develop and maintain Biosecurity Program, Feed Mill Hygiene Program, Mycotoxin Risk Management Program, and Foreign Supplier Verification Program.
Quality & Food Safety Director
The Wenger Group
03.2022 - 06.2023
- Design, develop, implement, maintain, monitor, and improve all aspects of proprietary Quality Program
- Shaped and built Food Safety Quality and Regulatory (FSQR) culture through cross functional interactions with plant managers and other facility leaders; liaison between customer and operations to ensure customer’s quality standards and expectations are met.
- Managed efficiently & effectively systematic quality testing and reporting on all critical processes and products.
- Establish industry leadership in quality and food safety through implementation of proprietary Quality Program as customer facing brand in differentiating products of Wenger Feeds in active collaboration with relationship management team, customers, and other influencers.
- Interface between customers and facilities to review product performance, conduct quality and food/feed safety audits, review 3rd party certifications and respond to customer questions and complaints.
- In collaboration with procurement, reviews information from suppliers to assure proper product conformance, requirement and regulations and visits suppliers to assess quality assurance practices.
- Independently identify complex or long-term food safety and quality problems and lead implementing solutions.
- Maintain and monitor control systems that assure compliance with regulatory requirements (e.g. FDA, PQC, FSMA, USDA sampling plans, HACCP, SSOP, Non-Conformance response and follow-up) and reporting problems with food safety management system across 10 manufacturing locations
FSQA Director
IRA Middleswarth & Son
06.2019 - 03.2022
- Creating and fostering a Food Safety Management System.
- Created and implemented food safety policies and procedures to ensure compliance with FSMA guidelines. Created and implemented SOP's, SSOP's, GMP, Environmental Control and Monitoring Program, Allergen Control Program, product inspection and testing procedures, employee training and development and food security and defense program.
- Review of product specifications and development of product quality testing standards with statistical reporting for continual improvement.
- Inspection of incoming raw material for compliance with quality standards agreed upon in vendor contracts, reporting discrepancies and working with vendors as necessary.
- Review of customer concerns to identify and investigate food safety issues for root cause analysis and corrective and preventative actions.
- Identified deviations in finished products from quality standards, isolating causes within production process and devising solutions to increase consistency.
- Developed and implemented new employee orientation program.
- Trained and developed employees in effort to contribute to overall professional growth.
- Gathered data on dimensions and performance characteristics of production items through testing procedures, performing statistical analysis on test results.
Quality Assurance Manager
FURMAN FOODS, INC
01.2013 - 06.2019
- Provided Leadership in Quality Assurance and Quality Improvement policies, programs and initiatives
- Ensure that customers are provided with safe, wholesome and nutritious great tasting product
- Maintain open relationship with customers
- Reported on pending food safety and regulatory issues and take appropriate action to bring company into compliance with required regulations and customer specifications
- Provide leadership for process control and continuous improvement processes
- Management of Document control, Corrective & Preventative Actions, Vendor Certifications, Internal Auditing, Integrated
- Pest Management, Statistical Process Control and Consumer Communications
- Oversee implementation of Quality Management System
- Prepare and coordinate all 3rd party Audits, including USDA, FDA, Department of Ag, GMO, Organic and Customer related audits
- Developed First Pass Quality vs Final Release database
- Utilization of statistical analysis to develop Foreign Material tracking to root cause
- Development of freshpack specification standards to reduce quality holds
- Improved equipment calibration and maintenance program
- Managed 700k budget
- Maintain dry bean vendor quality by reviewing and improving incoming dry bean quality by building strong relationships
- Implemental in increased USDA Audit score from 98.1% Excellent rating to achieve 100% Superior rating
- Superior rating has been maintained for three consecutive years
- Collaboration with UC Davis for improved garbanzo breeding and Cornell research processing varietal trials
- Achieved and sustained 96% rating, highest first time quality and Tech efficiency rankings attained companywide
- Innovated and launched new protocols to facilitate fulfillment of production requirements
- Drove the completion of Research & Development initiatives
- Strengthened interdepartmental communications through keen relationship-building and unflagging commitment to understanding requirements and challenges of each division
- Quality, detailing root cause challenges as well as corrective and preventative solutions
- Elevated customer satisfaction by 20% through quick and effective resolution of recurring and emerging quality problems, including by originating and introducing new standards based on Corrective
Quality Assurance/ISO Manager
INGRETEC, LTD
01.2010 - 01.2013
- Launched new Self Auditing program to facilitate Food Safety and Health and Safety requirements
- Initiated weekly communication meetings for timely reporting of safety, quality, and production updates
- Introduced First Time Quality Tracking and Trending
- Utilized Statistical Analysis tools to develop process capabilities .
- Developed and maintained Health and Safety training program
- Increased 3rd Party Audit score by 70 points by ensuring compliance to standards to achieve Superior rating, highest rating ever received by any Food Manufacturing Facility
- Implementation of Nutritional Database
- Established a robust internal audit program that maintained compliance with ISO requirements while continually identifying opportunities for improvement.
- Managed corrective action plans to address audit findings, ensuring swift resolution and ongoing compliance with ISO standards.
- Championed a culture of continuous improvement within the organization, driving employee engagement in quality initiatives and fostering a proactive approach to problemsolving.
Education
Bachelor of Science - Biology
Cedar Crest College
Allentown, PAMaster of Science - Food Safety
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MISkills
- Friendly, Positive Attitude
- Teamwork and Collaboration
- Customer Service
- Problem-Solving & Resolution
- Critical Thinking
- Food Safety and Quality Management
- GFSI Certification development and management
- Cost Reduction
- Policy & Procedure Development
- Operational Improvements Training & Development
- Quantitative & Qualitative Testing
- Certified Process Management: Organic, Non GMO, ISO, USDA, Kosher
Certification
- HACCP
- PCQI – Animal Food
- PCQI – Human Food
- FSMA – FSVP
- FSMA – IAVA
- SQF Practitioner
- KSU Feed Manufacturing
- BPCS
Timeline
Head of Food Safety
The Wenger Group
06.2023 - Current
Quality & Food Safety Director
The Wenger Group
03.2022 - 06.2023
FSQA Director
IRA Middleswarth & Son
06.2019 - 03.2022
Quality Assurance Manager
FURMAN FOODS, INC
01.2013 - 06.2019
Quality Assurance/ISO Manager
INGRETEC, LTD
01.2010 - 01.2013
Bachelor of Science - Biology
Cedar Crest College
Master of Science - Food Safety
Michigan State University
- HACCP
- PCQI – Animal Food
- PCQI – Human Food
- FSMA – FSVP
- FSMA – IAVA
- SQF Practitioner
- KSU Feed Manufacturing
- BPCS
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