Senior Food Safety Manager

sweetgreen is on a mission to build healthy communities by connecting people to real food. We passionately believe that real food should be convenient and accessible to everyone. Every day, in each of our restaurants, we are creating an environment where people can come together over a shared love of real food.

The Senior Food Safety Manager is sweetgreen's technical authority on food safety and sets the standards that protect our customers in our restaurants. This role owns food safety strategy and program design across the full fleet, serves as the subject matter expert the restaurant teams turn to on complex and high-risk issues, and carries direct responsibility for food safety performance in the New York City Region. You will define how we measure and improve food safety, partner with senior operations and supply chain leaders on the initiatives that keep our standards ahead of the industry, and be the person our operators trust when something goes wrong in a restaurant.

You will:

• Set food safety strategy, program standards, and priorities for sweetgreen, partnering with company leadership on major initiatives from concept through measurable results and using risk, audit, and regulatory data to focus effort and investment where it matters most.

• Serve as the technical authority for the Food Safety team, guiding regional partners on complex investigations, high-risk escalations, and consistent application of standards across the fleet.

• Own food safety performance for the NYC Region, partnering directly with operators to deliver world-class standards in the restaurants and maintain compliance with federal, state, and local regulatory requirements.

• Own the NYC Region's third-party audit and pest control programs, reviewing audit results, sanitation violations, customer complaints, temperature monitoring, and pest activity, and driving corrective action to completion with timely documentation.

• Build the systems the function runs on, including SOPs, training materials, crisis management protocols, and reporting that tracks food safety and quality performance, evaluates restaurant-level compliance, and surfaces risk early.

• Build and maintain relationships with local health departments, guiding operators through inspections, violations, and requests, and keeping sweetgreen current on changes in government regulation and industry best practice.

• Keep open lines with partners across the company to surface food safety and quality issues early and turn them into continuous improvement opportunities.

Desired Traits:

• Deep technical expert with command of pathogens and microbes associated with food production, microbiological testing, HACCP, SOPs, and the government and industry regulations, codes, and standards that govern food safety and quality.

• Influential without authority, able to build credibility with operators and executives and move standards forward through expertise and relationships.

• Problem solver who leads with root cause analysis and continuous process improvement rather than one-time fixes.

• Data fluent, comfortable working in food safety management and reporting systems and turning audit, complaint, and monitoring data into a clear picture of where risk sits.

• Clear communicator who can move between a restaurant walkthrough and an executive readout without losing the thread.

• Trusted partner who builds strong working relationships with local health departments and across internal functions.

• Generous with knowledge, and motivated by coaching and raising the capability of others across the organization.

• Self-directed operator with high integrity who takes initiative and delivers with limited oversight.

• Comfortable with travel up to 75% of the time and energized by time in restaurants.

Desired Experience:

• 10+ years in food safety or quality assurance, ideally in a multi-unit restaurant or QSR environment.

• Track record building and scaling food safety programs across a growing footprint.

• Direct experience owning third-party audit programs and regulatory relationships.

• Experience serving as the technical escalation point for a distributed team or field organization.

• Bachelor of Science degree; preference for Food Science, Microbiology, Biological Science, or a related discipline.

• Experience influencing senior leaders on decisions that carry operational and financial consequence.

u'll get:

• Highly competitive pay + bonus plan

• Three different medical plans to suit your and your family's needs

• Dental and Vision insurance

• Flexible PTO plan

• 401k program

• Employee HSA and FSA

• Complimentary greens

• An opportunity to make a real impact on the people around you, both by growing them and by connecting them to real food

• To live the sweetlife and celebrate your passion + purpose

• A collaborative team of people who live our core values and have your back

• A clear career path with opportunities for development, both personally and professionally

• Free sweetgreen swag

Come join the sweetlife!

About sweetgreen

sweetgreen is on a mission to build healthier communities by connecting people to real food. We passionately believe that real food should be convenient and accessible to everyone. Every day in each sweetgreen, our 3,500 team members make food from scratch, using fresh ingredients and produce delivered that morning. And in our local communities, we’re committed to leaving people better than we found them. We’re in the business of feeding people, and we’re out to change what that means.

sweetgreen provides equal opportunities for everyone that works for us and everyone that applies to join our team, without regard to sex or gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, pregnancy, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, any service, past, present, or future, in the uniformed services of the United States (military or veteran status), or any other consideration protected by federal, state, or local law.

sweetgreen participates in the federal government's E-Verify program to determine employment eligibility. To learn more about the E-Verify program, please click here.

Salary range for this role:

Starting salary range based on experience

$110,000—$147,000 USD

Sweetgreen provides equal opportunities for all employees and applicants, without regard to sex or gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, race (including traits historically associated with race, such as hair texture and protective hairstyles), religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, pregnancy, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, any service in the uniformed services of the United States, or any other consideration protected by federal, state, or local law.

California residents: Review our applicant privacy notice HERE.

sweetgreen participates in the federal government's E-Verify program to determine employment eligibility. To learn more about the E-Verify program, please click here.