General Manager - Plant (Syra Foods)

Why Join Us?

This is an opportunity to lead a strategic chicken processing operation being built through the Syra Foods, with significant scope to shape the plant's operating systems, team, processes and scale.

If you have strong experience in poultry processing and are ready to lead a high-performance processing operation, we would like to hear from you.

About the Role

We are looking for an experienced Plant Head Chicken Processing to lead the operations of our upcoming Syra Foods at Dera Bassi.

The Plant Head will be responsible for the end-to-end operations of the chicken slaughter and processing facility, with ownership of production, yield, quality, food safety, cost, maintenance, manpower, productivity and OTIF performance.

This is a senior leadership role for an experienced poultry-processing professional who can build a high-performance plant culture and deliver operational excellence at scale.

Role & responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end plant operations covering live bird receiving, slaughter, evisceration, chilling, cut-up, deboning, packing, cold storage and dispatch.
• Own plant performance across production, capacity utilisation, yield, productivity, quality and cost.
• Drive improvement in live-to-dressed yield, cut-up yield, deboning yield and overall product recovery.
• Ensure production plans are achieved while maintaining high standards of quality and food safety.
• Own plant conversion cost/kg, labour productivity, utilities, consumables and process losses.
• Drive OEE, line efficiency, downtime reduction and equipment availability in partnership with the engineering team.
• Ensure compliance with FSSAI, HACCP, GMP, GHP, EHS and internal food-safety standards.
• Lead plant QA, production, engineering, PPC, warehouse, utilities and plant administration teams.
• Develop a strong operational team with clear accountability and performance metrics.
• Work closely with sourcing, supply chain, demand planning and commercial teams to ensure uninterrupted operations and OTIF fulfilment.
• Establish robust SOPs, production systems, MIS and performance dashboards.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives across yield, quality, productivity, cost and process efficiency.
• Manage statutory, environmental, safety and regulatory compliance for the facility.

Key Performance Areas

• Production & capacity utilisation
• Live-to-dressed yield
• Cut-up & deboning yield
• OEE and line efficiency
• Processing cost/kg
• Labour productivity
• Quality & food safety
• Plant downtime
• OTIF performance
• Waste & process loss
• Safety and statutory compliance

Preferred candidate profile

• 12+ years of experience in poultry processing / meat processing / food manufacturing.
• Bachelor's degree in Food Technology, Engineering, Poultry Technology, Agriculture or a related discipline.
• An MBA/PGDM in Operations or Supply Chain will be an advantage.
• Strong experience in commercial poultry slaughter and processing.
• Prior experience leading a large-scale processing plant or as a senior plant/operations leader.
• Strong understanding of slaughter, chilling, cut-up, deboning, packing and cold-chain operations.
• Proven experience in yield management, cost optimisation and productivity improvement.
• Strong understanding of HACCP, GMP, GHP, food safety and statutory compliance.
• Experience managing large blue-collar teams and multi-shift operations.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities.
• Ability to work across functions and manage multiple stakeholders.
• Strong ownership, execution and people-leadership skills.