About The Role
Wild Zora and Flatiron Food Factory are looking for a General Manager to take over day-to-day leadership of our Loveland food manufacturing facility. This is not a desk-only executive role, and not a narrow plant supervisory role; we need a serious operator who can run the business rhythm of a growing food manufacturing company, managing people, production, quality, accountability, scheduling, materials, margins, throughput, and execution. The right person has deep experience in food manufacturing and knows how to lead from both the floor and the numbers. You should be comfortable walking a USDA/FDA-regulated production floor in the morning, reviewing labor and throughput data by lunch, working through material constraints with procurement in the afternoon, and sitting in an executive meeting to help make real business decisions. You will work directly for the CEO and partner closely with our finance and sales leaders to help scale the company with discipline. Our goal is not just to make the plant busier; our goal is to build a stronger operating company capable of scaling toward $50M+ in annual sales.
What You’ll Own
You will own the daily operating rhythm of the facility and help turn strategy into execution. This includes:
- Leading daily plant operations across production, warehouse, maintenance, procurement coordination, and QA execution
- Building a stronger management layer by coaching supervisors, leads, and department managers
- Creating clear accountability around shift performance, labor use, quality, yield, throughput, and follow-through
- Partnering with Finance to understand labor, materials, margins, waste, production costs, and profitability
- Partnering with Sales and leadership to translate demand into realistic production plans
- Improving scheduling, raw material planning, warehouse organization, and production flow
- Strengthening SOPs, checklists, reporting tools, KPI dashboards, and management routines
- Supporting food safety, USDA/FDA compliance, HACCP/GMP discipline, and audit readiness
- Building a culture where people know what is expected, managers follow through, and problems get solved instead of tolerated
- Helping the company scale without losing quality, sanity, or control
What We’re Looking For
We are looking for someone who has already lived the pressure of scaling food manufacturing. You have managed supervisors, leads, and production teams. You know what it means when the floor is behind, labor is tight, raw materials are late, equipment is down, Q/A is asking questions, and sales still needs product shipped. You do not panic. You build systems, create clarity, and help people execute. Strong candidates will have:
- 7+ years of experience in food manufacturing, meat processing, freeze-drying, USDA/FDA production, or a closely related regulated manufacturing environment
- 5+ years leading supervisors, leads, managers, or multi-shift production teams
- Experience owning plant performance, not just participating in it
- Working knowledge of USDA, FDA, HACCP, GMP, SQF, food safety systems, and audit expectations
- Strong operational judgment around labor, scheduling, materials, maintenance, yield, throughput, and quality
- Comfort with spreadsheets, production reports, KPIs, ERP/MES systems, and operational data
- Practical understanding of Lean, Six Sigma, continuous improvement, or similar operating disciplines
- Enough financial literacy to understand cost accounting, margin impact, labor efficiency, and production economics
- High accountability, high EQ, and strong written/verbal communication
Who Will Thrive Here
You will thrive here if you are hungry for real responsibility and an amazing career opportunity. This is a family-owned, founder-led, fast-growing company with amazing growth potential. We are not a slow corporate plant where every decision goes through five committees. Your ideas will move quickly from conversation to testing to implementation. But that also means we need someone who is direct, practical, and resilient. This role requires judgment, stamina, humility, and a bias toward solving problems. You should like building systems inside a growing company where some things are already strong and other things still need to be professionalized. The best candidate for this role wants more than a plant manager job. You want to help run and build a business.
Why Wild Zora / Flatiron
We are a long-term-minded, family-owned food manufacturing company based in Loveland, Colorado. We produce premium clean-label foods, freeze-dried proteins, and related products in a highly regulated food manufacturing environment.
- A hands-on leadership style: comfortable moving from spreadsheets to production equipment and back
- Bilingual English/Spanish is a plus
- Freeze-drying, lyophilization, dehydration, meat processing, or animal-protein experience is a major plus
Experience
- Food manufacturing operations: 7 years preferred
- Plant leadership or operations management: 5 years required
- USDA/FDA/HACCP/GMP environment: strongly preferred
- Meat, protein, freeze-drying, dehydration, or regulated food production: strongly preferred
You will report directly to the CEO and serve as a key member of the leadership team. You will work alongside Finance, Sales, Production, QA, Procurement, Warehouse, and Maintenance to build the operating engine for the next stage of growth. This is a rare opportunity for a strong manufacturing leader to step into a true General Manager seat with meaningful influence, upside, and ownership of results.
Compensation Package
- Base salary, based on experience
- Annual performance bonus based on profitability and operating results
- Equity/profit-sharing plan participation
- Professional development assistance
- plus all other benefits listed
Pay: $120,000.00 - $150,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- Dental insurance
- Employee discount
- Health insurance
- Health savings account
- Paid time off
- Parental leave
- Professional development assistance
- Referral program
- Relocation assistance
- Retirement plan
- Vision insurance
Work Location: In person
