Manager: Production

About Premier FMCG

Premier FMCG is at the heart of South Africa’s FMCG industry, delivering trusted, iconic brands across our Bakery, Milling, Confectionery, Home & Personal Care and Culinary divisions. We are driven by innovation, collaboration, and a high-performance growth culture. We empower our people to strive for excellence ensuring that our products and people make a difference in the everyday lives of our consumers.

Job Purpose

- To lead a high-performance wheat-milling production team to consistently deliver in-specification flour at the required production capacity, extraction, quality and cost, while ensuring compliance with Premier FMCG standards, food-safety requirements, occupational health and safety legislation, and all applicable policies and procedures.
- The Production Manager will provide strong technical and operational leadership to a production team of approximately 25 shift millers and milling assistants, with accountability for people, processes, systems, production performance and continuous improvement.

Key Responsibilities

Production & Milling Performance

- Ensure the production process consistently delivers high-quality flour in line with required specifications.
- Optimise milling processes to maximise throughput, extraction, yield, efficiency and product quality.
- Control process variation and identify root causes of production and quality deviations.
- Manage mill performance against agreed production KPIs.
- Optimise production gain/throughput and minimise losses.
- Ensure effective mill balancing and process optimisation.
- Work closely with Engineering and Maintenance to maximise plant availability and minimise downtime.

Raw Material & Gristing Management

- Ensure cost-effective raw-material utilisation.
- Understand and manage wheat quality, gristing and blending challenges.
- Optimise wheat grists in accordance with production requirements and flour specifications.
- Work closely with procurement, wheat intake, quality and other stakeholders to manage raw-material challenges.
- Monitor wheat stocks against milling plans and demand.
- Optimise extraction in line with the required product quality.

People Leadership

- Lead, motivate and develop approximately 25 shift millers and assistants.
- Build a high-performance production culture based on accountability, discipline and continuous improvement.
- Provide coaching, mentoring, training and development.
- Implement effective performance-management processes.
- Develop technical competency and succession capability within the milling team.
- Establish effective communication and working relationships with employees, management, Engineering, Quality, Supply Chain and other stakeholders.
- Manage employee relations, discipline and grievances in accordance with company policies and procedures.
- Work constructively with employee/union representatives.

Food Safety & Quality

- Ensure full compliance with FSSC 22000, HACCP, GMP and Premier FMCG food-safety requirements.
- Ensure production personnel understand and comply with food-safety procedures.
- Participate in internal and external food-safety audits.
- Ensure audit findings and non-conformances are appropriately addressed.
- Maintain effective traceability, hygiene, foreign-material prevention and contamination-control practices.
- Promote a strong food-safety culture throughout the production department.

Health, Safety & Environment

- Ensure compliance with the Occupational Health and Safety Act and applicable statutory requirements.
- Promote a proactive employee safety culture.
- Ensure risk assessments and safe operating procedures are implemented and maintained.
- Ensure appropriate training and competency of employees.
- Investigate incidents and ensure corrective actions are implemented.
- Maintain high standards of housekeeping and operational safety.
- Manage the risks associated with flour milling, including machinery, moving equipment and combustible flour/grain dust.

Cost & Resource Management

- Ensure production is managed within agreed budgets and resource plans.
- Optimise labour, raw-material and process costs.
- Monitor production losses and identify opportunities for cost reduction.
- Support budgeting, forecasting and cost-control processes.
- Ensure efficient utilisation of production resources.

Systems & Continuous Improvement

- Develop, maintain and enforce production SOPs and work instructions.
- Drive continuous improvement within the milling operation.
- Analyse production data and identify opportunities to improve efficiency, quality, extraction and cost.
- Apply structured problem-solving and root-cause analysis.
- Support Lean/continuous-improvement initiatives.
- Ensure accurate production reporting and effective use of production-management systems

Competencies (Knowledge, skills and abilities):

- Food Safety / FSSC 22000
- Supervisory and management principles
- Financial acumen
- Budgeting and cost control
- Performance management
- Disciplinary and grievance procedures
- Health, Safety, Environment and Risk Management
- Continuous improvement
- Internal auditing
- Analytical thinking and problem solving
- Production calculations and efficiencies
- Microsoft Office, particularly Excel

Experience And Qualifications

- Recognised Wheat/Flour Milling qualification.
- Qualified/competent Wheat Miller with substantial practical commercial milling experience.
- Advanced milling training/qualification would be highly advantageous.
- Recognised management/leadership qualification or equivalent experience.
- Advanced Occupational Health & Safety training/certificate.
- FSSC 22000/HACCP food-safety training and practical experience.
- Shift Miller - Senior/Head Miller - Production/Mill Manager
- Minimum 10 years' experience in commercial wheat/flour milling, with extensive experience as a Head Miller and proven experience managing the production operation of a large-scale flour mill.

Diversity & Inclusion

Premier FMCG is an equal opportunity employer. We encourage applications from all qualified individuals, including people living with disabilities. By applying, you consent to the processing of your personal information in line with the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI Act) for recruitment purposes.

Closing Date: 02 October 2026