Animal Welfare Officer
2 Sisters Food Group · Willand, Cullompton
Our estimate of how close this role sits to decisions about what gets sourced, specified, bought and served. How we score
Why this role matters
Where the work sits relative to real sourcing and menu decisions.
This role puts you on the processing line itself, checking the welfare status of live birds as they arrive and monitoring how operatives handle them at the hanging stand — one of the most welfare-critical points in the whole poultry supply chain. Reporting a welfare issue here, or holding a line to the training standard behind the COC (Certificate of Competence) scheme, has a direct and immediate effect on how those specific birds are treated. It is a frontline role rather than a policy-setting one, so it won't let you rewrite supplier welfare standards from this seat, but few jobs put you this physically close to the point where poor practice either gets caught or gets missed. For someone building toward a career shaping welfare standards at a policy or supply-chain level, this is a genuinely credible starting point: you would leave with hands-on knowledge of how welfare compliance actually works on a live processing floor, which is exactly the grounding that more senior welfare and technical roles later value.
About the role
This is an Animal Welfare Officer role at a poultry processing site, sitting within the quality and welfare function on the factory floor. The postholder monitors deliveries of live birds to ensure a steady supply, checks the welfare status of birds as they arrive, and reports any welfare issues to the relevant people. They also monitor and check operatives working on the hanging stand, and assist the Senior Animal Welfare Manager in maintaining training and assessments for COC (Certificate of Competence) applicants. Beyond welfare monitoring, the role carries quality responsibilities: carrying out tasks in line with documented procedures, ensuring products meet customer specifications, and referring consistently to customer specification sheets to check that portions and products meet agreed weight and size parameters, free of visible quality issues such as excessive bruising, poor cutting standards, bone fragments or excess fat. The postholder is responsible for identifying and reporting product defects or deviations from specification, removing non-conforming products from the line, and carrying out root cause analysis to identify the cause of quality issues. They are also expected to coach others so they understand and adhere to the relevant customer specification sheets. No qualifications, reporting line beyond the Senior Animal Welfare Manager, travel requirements, or contract details are stated in the advert beyond what is described above.
This is an extract. Read the full advert on the employer's site.
Key terms to include in your CV and cover letter
What this employer asks for, in their own words. Applications are often screened by software matching exact phrases, so where these genuinely describe your experience, use their wording rather than your own.
- animal welfare monitoring
- livestock reception checks
- welfare issue reporting
- poultry hanging stand oversight
- customer specification compliance
- product quality inspection
- root cause analysis
- defect identification
- specification deviation reporting
- coaching and training others
- manufacturing quality standards
- portion weight and size control
- line quality control
How to position yourself
The language that lands with hiring managers in this kind of role.
Frame your interest around consistent quality and compliance outcomes: welfare monitoring, root cause analysis on defects, and adherence to customer specifications all speak directly to risk reduction and supply reliability, which is language processors value. Worth building toward the COC (Certificate of Competence) qualification referenced in the advert, and developing familiarity with customer specification and quality control processes as a foundation for later technical or supplier-standards roles.
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