Director, Food Safety Quality Assurance (FSQA) – Product Management
About The Position
Based in Pasadena, California, Dine Brands Global, Inc. (NYSE: DIN), through its subsidiaries, franchises restaurants under Applebee's Neighborhood Grill + Bar®, IHOP® and Fuzzy's Taco Shop® brands. With over 3,500 restaurants combined in 18 countries and 354 franchisees as of December 31, 2023, Dine Brands is one of the largest full-service restaurant companies in the world. For more information on Dine Brands, visit the Company's website located at www.dinebrands.com. The FSQA Director of Product Management is responsible for leading the food safety and quality strategy for menu products across the Dine Brands portfolio. This role ensures that all products—from new menu innovations to core menu platforms—meet brand safety, quality, regulatory, and operational standards across IHOP, Applebee’s, and Fuzzy’s Taco Shop systems. This position partners closely with culinary, supply chain, operations, and suppliers to ensure safe and successful commercialization of new menu items while maintaining consistent product quality across the system.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Food Science, Public Health, Biology, Chemistry or related field required; advanced degree in food or nutritional science required.
- 8 years of experience in food safety, quality assurance, or product development
- Experience supporting restaurant or foodservice brands
- Experience working with franchise restaurant systems
- HACCP and preventive controls
- Product specification and ingredient standards
- Shelf-life and product stability testing
- Food microbiology and risk assessment
- Supplier quality programs
- Regulatory compliance and labeling
- Strategic leadership in cross-functional environments
- Strong collaboration with culinary and innovation teams
- Supplier relationship management
- Crisis management and issue resolution
- Ability to influence franchise stakeholders.
Nice To Haves
- Experience with multi-brand portfolios preferred.
Responsibilities
- Lead FSQA oversight for all menu products across IHOP, Applebee’s, and Fuzzy’s Taco Shop.
- Ensure food safety and quality standards are embedded throughout the product lifecycle from ideation to national rollout.
- Define product specifications, safety parameters, and quality attributes for ingredients and finished menu items.
- Support culinary menu innovation initiatives while ensuring food safety risk mitigation.
- Establish cross-brand product governance to standardized FSQA product management processes across Dine Brands.
- Provide technical oversight to ensure consistent quality standards while accommodating brand-specific menu platforms (e.g., breakfast-focused IHOP vs casual dining Applebee’s).
- Manage product approval gates for new menu launches.
- Partner with culinary and marketing teams to ensure FSQA requirements are integrated during product development.
- Evaluate ingredient risks, processing controls, shelf life, and quality attributes.
- Support pilot testing and national rollouts of new products and limited time offers.
- Collaborate with supply chain to qualify new suppliers and ingredients.
- Establish supplier quality requirements and product specifications.
- Monitor supplier performance and implement corrective actions when necessary.
- Ensure compliance with food safety and labeling regulations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service.
- Lead investigations related to product complaints, food safety incidents, or recall events.
- Monitor consumer complaint trends and product performance data.
- Drive initiatives to improve product consistency, shelf life, and supplier performance.
- Continuous Improvement & Data Analytics.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Director
