Technical & Compliance Officer
Surrey (on site) · Full time, permanent · £34,000 depending on experience · New role
Ready to step up into a broader technical role — one where you own the food safety system rather than just feed into it?
The Fish Society is the UK's leading online fishmonger. For over 25 years we've supplied the widest range of premium frozen seafood in the country — over 200 lines — to around 150,000 household customers, plus a fast-growing wholesale business supplying leading online grocers, recipe box companies and premium retailers. We're SALSA accredited with MSC and ASC Chain of Custody certification, and quality and provenance are the whole point of what we do.
We're creating a brand-new Technical & Compliance Officer role at the heart of the business. You'll be our go-to person for food safety, quality and on-site health & safety — a genuinely varied role where no two days look the same. It's a role with room to shape how we work: we want someone who will move us from reacting to problems towards preventing them.
What you'll do
- Own and develop our HACCP-based food safety management system, keeping us audit-ready year round.
- Build out our raw material control programme — intake checks, organoleptic assessment and a structured micro sampling and testing schedule across our supply base. This is an area we want to lead on rather than react to, and there's real scope to design it properly.
- Run an internal GMP audit programme across site — setting the standard, auditing against it, and closing out corrective actions with the team.
- Be the first point of contact for product specifications and labelling across our retail and wholesale ranges.
- Run quality control on site — intake, production, despatch — and investigate complaints through to root cause.
- Look after our traceability system, including mock recalls.
- Prepare for and host site audits (SALSA, MSC/ASC and customer audits), and support our wholesale customers' technical requirements.
- Take day-to-day responsibility for on-site health & safety compliance.
- Cover compliance administration while a colleague is on maternity leave — a great way to learn our systems inside out.
- Work alongside our Operations Manager to make sure we live by the systems we set — and keep improving them.
What you'll need
- Around two years' experience in a technical, QA or compliance role in food manufacturing.
- Level 3 Food Safety and Level 3 HACCP (these are two separate qualifications — we'd expect both).
- Hands-on experience of raw material intake control: goods-in checks, organoleptic assessment and micro testing.
- A solid understanding of GMP principles and how GMP auditing works in practice.
- Working knowledge of UK food labelling.
- Organised, detail-driven and comfortable talking to everyone from the production floor to external auditors.
- Most of all: ambitious. You're looking for more responsibility, a wider scope and a role you can grow into and shape.
Nice to have
None of these are dealbreakers — we'd rather have the right person and train them — but any of the following would stand out:
- A degree in food science, food technology or a related subject — though we're equally happy with someone who has built their technical knowledge on the job.
- Level 4 Food Safety and/or Level 4 HACCP.
- A Lead Auditor qualification.
- A Food Defence course (TACCP / VACCP).
- Previous experience working to retailers' codes of practice.
- Experience with SALSA or BRCGS.
- A seafood, chilled or frozen food background.
- An IOSH qualification.
Why join us
- A new role you can make your own, with real breadth from day one.
- Direct exposure to the whole business — production, NPD, wholesale customers and audits.
- Support for training and qualifications — Level 4 Food Safety and HACCP, lead auditor, food defence, internal auditing and IOSH — and a clear path to progress as we grow.
- A small, friendly team that's serious about seafood and about doing things properly.
How to apply
Send your CV and a short note telling us why this role appeals to you. We review applications as they come in, so please don't wait for a closing date.
Pay: £34,000.00 per year
Work Location: In person
