Why Greencore?
Following the combination with Bakkavor in January 2026, we’re one of the UK’s leading creators of convenience food, driven by a simple purpose: to make everyday taste better.
As a vibrant and fast-moving business, we’re proud to employ over 28,000 talented colleagues across 36 manufacturing sites and 21 distribution depots in the UK and the US. Together, we bring delicious food to life. Our products cover every meal occasion from breakfast through to dinner and dessert, with lunch and snacking in between. In FY25, our shared passion helped us achieve combined revenues of approximately £4bn.
Our extensive direct to store (DTS) network, with 17 depots across the UK, allows us to deliver fresh and frozen food both our own and from trusted partners to thousands of stores every day, ensuring consumers enjoy the very best, whenever and wherever they shop.
Here in Consett, we have a team of around 280 colleagues. We produce a range of chilled ready meals for some of the UK's leading retailers, including Co-op, Sainsbury's and Weight Watchers.
What you’ll be doing
As General Manager, you will lead and inspire teams across our Consett site, driving operational excellence, delivering key performance targets, and ensuring exceptional customer outcomes through a culture of safety, quality, and continuous improvement
- Development, delivery, and governance of the (GME) Manufacturing Excellence Plan for the site
- Own and lead the Ethical and HS&E action plans for site ensuring the standards, ethical code and audit requirements are met
- Meet the necessary customer, food safety, compliance and environmental codes and standards, addressing any gaps and risks and, ensuring our people are trained, safe and capable
- Delivery of the culture, engagement, and recognition plan at site for colleagues and to support our work in communities
- Identify and narrow the capability gaps, and maximising the potential of our people through delivery and engagement in talent and development activity
- Delivery of the resource plan and management of the risks associated in labour planning to ensure sufficient labour to meet the production plan, including management of the employee relations agenda e.g., trade unions, colleague consultation forums etc
- Ensuring that our customer demand can be met through effective decision making and feasibility of new product production
- Delivery of the P&L through effective budget controls and management e.g., labour, forecasting, waste, overheads, indirect labour, expenses, compliance training spend and forecasting and delivery of the 1–3-year capital plan
- Effective management of the supply chain through goods to dispatch, managing goods in and controlling external storage costs
- Ensure effective and risk managed IT infrastructure is maintained at site through ownership and governance of standards and embedding of projects
- Actively sponsor and commit the necessary resource and focus required to deliver our inclusion and diversity commitments, goals and targets and be a role model for inclusive leadership behaviours
- Actively sponsor and commit the necessary resource and focus required to support delivery of our sustainability commitments, goals and targets
- Actively manage organisational risk related to both Cyber Security and data, by committing the necessary focus, resource and investing in the skills and experience required to ensure compliance to relevant policies and legislation, along with taking ownership for personal and commercial data processed throughout the group
- Enable the delivery of our Data Governance agenda and champion the need for high quality data in all relevant data domains. This includes taking responsibility for data policy governance, compliance to agreed data quality standards and championing a data-driven culture in the team
What we’re looking for
We’re not all the same at Greencore and our differences help us to make every day taste better for all our stakeholders. We truly put our people at the core and are proud of our diversity.
- Demonstrable operational leadership experience, ideally in a fast moving consumer goods environment
- Experience leading large and multi discipline teams e.g HR, Finance, Commercial, Technical ideally in a matrix organisation, influencing a broad range of stakeholders to lead change and enhance culture
- High degree of tenacity, resilience, purpose, and dedication to ensure goals are achieved and the team stays motivated and focused
- Experience having lead safety programmes, underpinned by IOSH/NEBOSH or equivalent and specific safety critical training appropriate to the site e.g., legionella duty holder training
- Understanding of and experience relating to ethical codes of practice and standards, informed on modern slavery and customer standards
- In depth understanding of food safety, hygiene, legislative requirements, and experience with GMP, operating a food safe factory to deliver robust compliance training delivery
- In depth understanding of external environmental requirements and experience operating a facility in line with legislative expectations
- Understanding of engagement drivers - colleague experience and external stakeholders (press/communities/retailers /consumers/public)
- Experience having led pay negotiations, worked with Trade Unions and employee forums, and having managed an agency supply provision desirable
- Understanding of the external market factors impacting retailers and consumer trends and demonstratable financial acumen and experience having built product costings
- Demonstratable experience managing a P&L and understanding of levers and drivers or costs, having built, set, and managed budgets across a range of disciplines
- Understanding of supply chain end to end, key customers, and suppliers at site level
- Robust and well-developed finance skills; comfortable dealing with complex financial data and weighing up risks and choices
- Experience having identified and lead business change and improvement activities and initiatives including capex and investment projects
- Understanding of modern manufacturing practices and technology
If this sounds like you, join us and grow with Greencore, and be a part of driving our future success.
What you’ll get in return
- Competitive salary and job-related benefits, including bonus, car allowance and medical cover.
- Holidays
- Competitive matched pension contributions
- Life insurance up to 4x salary
- Company share save scheme
- Greencore Qualifications
- Exclusive Greencore employee discount platform
- Access to a full Wellbeing Centre platform
- Enhanced parental leave and menopause policies
Throughout your time at Greencore, you will be supported with on the job training and development opportunities to further your career.
We reserve the right to close this advertisement before the stated closing date.
*Recruitment Fraud Warning: Greencore and its recruitment partners never charge candidates any fees at any stage of the hiring process. Any request for payment relating to a job opportunity should be considered fraudulent.*
