Vitacress Real is one of the leading herbal specialists in Europe. With our young and fast growing company, our mission is to let people enjoy food with natural and healthy seasonings.
Herbs are grown all year round, in order to ensure that we can offer consistent quality throughout the year. We like to grow in places where the product grows in the most natural and sustainable way. That is why we grow in the Netherlands, Germany, England, Spain, Portugal and Kenya, among others.
At our location in Venlo, these freshly grown herbs are then packaged for the European market and international consumers.
When you enter our building in Venlo you can taste the freshness and energy of Vitacress Real. You become infected with the passion for the product. Central to this are four values that can be felt by all colleagues. We Grow, We Care, We Inspire and We Smile.
When someone in the bar asks you what your job is, you say:
“Every day I am busy coaching our production team to get the most out of our process. I think it is cool to produce all orders as efficiently as possible on a daily basis, while there is a good atmosphere in the department. To be able to flawlessly produce our beautiful product with my enthusiastic team gives me a kick!”
But of course, you do a lot more…
- Together with our 4 other Assistant Production Managers you are responsible for leading the operational production team (100 employees). Important elements of your job are onboarding, coaching, developing, and training our (new) Senior Operators, Operators, and Production Workers.
- On daily basis you check the staff planning of our production lines.
- Monitoring health and safety rules at the shop floor.
- Continuous improvement is part of the job. You contribute to Kaizen/Scrum projects.
- Implementing and monitoring 5S on the packing department. You are a strong ambassador!
- You lead our daily whiteboard meetings
- Making sure that our orders are prepared in time.
- Responsible for a good communication and information flow between production and office (Top-down + Bottom up)
- Reporting technical deviations. You are in close contact with our department Technical Services.
- You have a strong focus on (product) quality (packs and raw materials) to make sure that our quality level is super high!
To give you an even better picture … Just another day at the office
Together with the production team, you start the shift by making sure there is a flying start. Within minutes of the shift start all lines are running properly. While going through the production planning and daily analysis, you enjoy a cup of fresh mint tea. The analysis of the day before showed that line 11 did not perform as expected. You make an analysis of the cause and plan the necessary actions. It turns out that line 11 loses too much time during a changeover. You therefore involve the Operators and our Continuous Improvement Coordinator, Tomasz, to make a short improvement plan. You ensure that it is implemented that same day.
Then you do a round on the floor. In the meantime, you monitor the performance of all lines.
During lunch you can enjoy a delicious cup of soup and challenge 2 colleagues during a table tennis match. After lunch you have a one-on-one half year evaluation meeting with our Senior Operators together with your colleague Assistant Production Manager Sylwia. The Senior Operators made great progress and therefore deserve a nice compliment and a good review. Together you process the next development steps for the coming six months.
At the end of the shift, you check whether there have been any problems during production that are important to know for other departments. You make a short note, so that you can discuss some action points the next day during the daily "Operational Sunrise meeting". Just before you go home, you go through next week's schedule with our Operations Scheduling Specialist, Daniel.
To be successful as our new herbal topper you have the following ingredients:
- Showing entrepreneurship is one of your strongest qualities. You strive for the maximum achievable. This gives you energy!
- We are looking for a decisive leader with a critical eye.
- Strong drive, enthusiasm, and problem-solving ability!
- You are experienced in leading a production team and preferably within a food environment.
- You are a leader with strong coaching, training, and management skills.
- Focus on quality, results and continuous improvement is self-evident to you.
- You enjoy working closely with different departments (for example Technical Services, Continuous Improvement, Logistics and Production Planning)
- You speak the English (Level B1) language. Speaking Dutch is a nice to have.
- Working in shifts is no issue for you 😊.
But you do not do this alone… our Production dream team
Together with your 4 colleague Assistant Production Managers, you ensure that the operation runs smoothly! The desired KPIs are achieved and the whole production team is motivated and driven to deliver top performance every day. You report to the Production Manager and together you work on improving the way of working and the development of the team.
What makes working at Vitacress fun?
We Grow. An enormous drive, an enormous growth. Since the start of Vitacress Real about 9 years ago, we have been experiencing enormous growth every year. We will continue to achieve this ambition in the coming years. And we do this together. Our team consists of people who want to get the most out of themselves and their teammates.
We Inspire. We value initiative and input and believe that this makes our organization better. There is also plenty of room for this. After all, together we achieve more. Vitacress Real is active in a niche market. There is a lot that can be optimized, and your input is important. You are a continuous success part of the process.
We Care. We believe growth and development are essential. Furthermore, we want to take good care of people. So, you can also enjoy a delicious fresh soup with the best quality herbs every day, together with your colleagues! People work hard, but social talk is also stimulated by working up a sweat before or after work in the equipped fitness room. Or do you prefer winning the table tennis battles?
We Smile. A great working atmosphere where hard work and having fun go hand-in-hand. Our annually recurring Social Calendar is filled with fun team events.
Are you joining are dream team? This is what we offer:
- A super dynamic working environment with talented colleagues who want to take each other to a higher level. You will be included in a knowledge organization that is growing and that focuses on experience and quality.
- Mint, thyme, rosemary (or any other herb), as much as you want!
- Free access to the Vita-Gym, so you stay fit in body and mind.
- A travel allowance from your front door to ours.
- A compensation for your old age.
- Our Vitality Fund! An annual budget to work on your vitality.
- Unlimited access to our online VR Academy!
- A great opportunity to share knowledge in an environment with room for own initiative and personal development.
We look forward to your CV! If you still have doubts or do you have questions about what makes this position so great? Then call us. For more information about our organization, we refer you to our website, which is worth a look.