About Us 

Since our founding in 2011, Nature’s Bakery has been baking better-for-you snacks to nourish families and enable them to thrive.  We believe that the choice to snack healthier should be an easy and desirable one.  Today, we are a top 10 granola and snack bar brand, with approximately 500 employees baking soft-baked snacks with real, recognizable, and wholesome ingredients, such as whole grains and sun-ripened fruits. 

Our marketplace success led us to join forces with KIND to create a health and wellness platform within Mars, Inc.  While continuing to operate as a standalone company, we are now part one of the most well-regarded consumer goods company in the world.  That independence allows us to remain an agile, insurgent brand committed to our brand purpose and founding. 

Nature’s Bakery is a fast-growing company with a bright future ahead.  We have achieved great things, and there is more opportunity for growth both on the digital and retail shelves, through expanded distribution with existing and new retail customers.  To achieve our aspirations, we are expanding our team of growth-minded, nimble, and entrepreneurial individuals who like to roll up their sleeves and get things done. We think like owners, act like operators.   

So, come join us to create a world of snacking that is both good, and good for you.  

About The Role 

As Value Stream Manager, you will lead and integrate the efforts of operating teams across multiple shifts to ensure that quality products are safely manufactured in sanitary conditions. This is a critical leadership role for the execution of company plans, and you are a key contributor to ensuring we are modeling the values the company was founded on. This role reports to the Plant Director, but will partner very closely with the Quality, Maintenance, Warehouse, Human Resources, Finance, and IT teams. Direct reports include the production supervisor roles and support all production team members.

The Critical Success Factors 

• Change Agent - Recommend and implement changes in methods, equipment, systems and organization, as needed, to assure that the objectives of the area are met. Deliver area requirements by influencing and gaining co-operation from other departments (Engineering, Quality Services, Commercial and Scheduling/Logistics).
• Team Member Advocacy - Proactively manage employee relations issues; guide and direct the hiring, training, retraining, development and motivation of Operations team members following team working principles with a minimum degree of guidance from the Site Director. Drive team member engagement through a foundation of teamwork and individual accountability. Engagement scores will be the criteria of choice for assuring consistency from site to site.
• Food Safety and Product Quality – Assure the ongoing production of safe and defect free products consistent with the principles of Nature’s Bakery. This role owns ongoing training and championing of quality goals and improvements at the area level.
• Goal Setting and Measurement - Utilizing Operations teams, establish area performance standards and goals based on site goals and strategies; measure, control, take corrective action and report results as appropriate in all areas of responsibility. Annually assist in development of area budgets and KPI targets.
• Troubleshooting - Manage/guide the technical area coverage resources for the troubleshooting and repair of process/packaging equipment problems, with the objective of effectively utilizing these resources to achieve desired performance levels.
• Communications - Ensure that open communications are established and that opportunities to broaden the scope and responsibility of Operations teams/team members are undertaken. The Production Supervisor is the key resource to deliver regular business performance updates.
• Technology Advancement - Advise the Site Director when opportunities exist for moving the area forward in technological change. Recommend improvements, which would result in new and improved equipment and or methods to minimize production costs and improve quality.

The Ideal Candidate  

• Strategy - Participate with the Site Director and other Operations support team members in the implementation of short-term and long-term improvement strategies that will enable more effective and efficient Value Stream performance.
• Value Stream Strategy – Participate with other managers in Planning, Sourcing, Delivery, Engineering, and Strategic business roles in the development and implementation of continuous improvement strategies that will drive the overall supply pipeline.
• Team Member Development - With the support and participation of the site leadership team, evaluate exempt and non-exempt team member performance. In conjunction with team members’ career goals, create development plans to challenge their potential.
• Site Management – The incumbent of this position must be prepared to act on behalf of the Site Director in his/her absence, i.e., protection of human and physical assets, Crisis Management, conducting Staff Meetings, addressing public relations issues, etc.

The Minimum And/Or Technical Requirements 

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily.  The following list that follows is representative of the knowledge, skill and/or ability required:

• Technical experience in a high speed manufacturing environment.
• Food manufacturing experience preferred
• Effective interpersonal skills with the ability to work with all levels of the organization
• Demonstrated ability to prioritize and execute. Results oriented.

Your Career Journey At Nature’s Bakery 

As a young company, we have had the opportunity to shape, reinforce and live our five core company values daily:  

• Growth Minded. You are incessantly curious, you believe career development is journey built on experiences, feedback and personal growth
• Solutions-Focused.  You excel at both thinking and doing and have a track record of turning organizational objectives into actionable solutions
• You thrive in environments where team members treat each other with respect and support one another, in fact you believe the best solutions emerge when you can engage in fact-based, low-ego discussions 
• Stronger Together. Working as a team towards a common goal, we thrive on collaboration because we believe each of us has a unique perspective to offer 
• “Doing the right thing” guides you, it is the compass that guides every decision and action you take 

Our culture enables our success as individuals and as a company.  From the start, you will have ownership over projects because we are a lean organization that tightly collaborates for faster decision-making.  In doing so, you will deepen your skillsets while having exposure to broader experiences and senior leadership.  Named by Fortune as one of the “World’s Best