Job Description

Location : Cookstown
Job Ref: UDF/2025/497
Employment : Full-Time Permanent
Closing Date : 22 September 2025 05:00 pm

Dale Farm Cooperative is a UK dairy farmer co-operative owned by over 1200 dairy farmers who supply us with fresh milk. Dale Farm has operations throughout the UK and Ireland producing and distributing a wide range of dairy products which it sells across the UK and Ireland as well as exporting to over 45 countries worldwide.


At Dale Farm virtually every career discipline is represented in our workforce, from production, engineering and distribution, to sales & marketing and food technology/quality assurance, to Finance, HR and IT through to general management. Our standards are high and when we recruit we are looking for those with energy and drive, who are keen for responsibility and motivated to succeed with a record of achievement and with the potential to develop as the company grows.

Culture

Our culture is based on setting best in class standards, working to-wards and delivering on committed objectives, striving for constant improvement and involving everyone in the company. We strive to develop our people and harness everyone's contribution to deliver a winning team.

Equal Opportunities

The company is an Equal Opportunities employer and is committed to a safe, inclusive and relationship based workspace.

Benefits

In return, we offer a high degree of responsibility, plenty of challenge, good opportunities for learning and personal development and rewarding benefit packages, all within a fast moving and results oriented environment.

Business Improvement Site Graduate - Dunman

About Us

Dale Farm is the largest UK farmer-owned cooperative, owned by 1,300 UK farmers. We supply a wide range of consumer and food ingredients dairy products including fresh milk, cheeses, milk powders, butter & dairy spreads, and ice cream into the UK, Irish and international markets.





Dunman is at the heart of Dale Farm's operations processing 78,500 Tonnes of cheddar. This is a complex operation key to Dale Farm's continued success. Given the breadth of business management tools now available to us, we are embarking on a journey to re-shape our business working practices with the objective of building streamlined, efficient operations relying on core business systems.





We are embarking on a journey to improve our information flows through the business and facilitate data-backed decision making in a timely manner. To support this, we are looking to recruit for the following key role to join the Group Business Improvement Team. This role will be based in Dunman but will require regular travel to our Head Office in Belfast.

About the Role

You will be seconded into the Dunman Operations for an initial 12 to 18 month period where you will get hands on experience in day to day operational leadership and project work. You will report to a key Senior Leader on site learning from them and contributing to the operational performance of the site. This period will allow you to understand how Dale Farm operates as you deliver concrete results whilst at the same time building a network on site. You will gain understanding of our processes and work with the site leadership on continuous improvement work. This hands-on experience will give you a detailed working understanding of our processes, embedding you as onsite support and setting you up for success in the next phase of your journey with us.





Following a successful secondment, you will transition into a position within our digitalisation project. You will use your newfound operational knowledge to help Dale Farm shape and implement future-state automation, moving us away from paper and Excel solutions, towards a streamlined, integrated, data-driven environment. Your insights will be crucial in defining the next stage of our digitalisation efforts, with the ultimate goal of scaling these improvements across all of Dale Farm sites.


sales.

Your responsibilities will include:

Supporting the Site Leadership team

to deliver on core operational KPIs. Support daily operations activity focusing on quality, safety, service and costs.

Support and lead improvement projects

by managing timelines, resources and delivering on clearly defined targets.

Collaborating with cross-functional teams

to solve problems, communicate progress and challenges, and implement site improvements.

Data collection, analysis and reporting

to enable the site to have clarity on performance and progress to achieve operational targets. Strong analytical skills will be required to distil focused critical actions from the wealth of data available.

About You

The Essential

Education/Experience

The successful candidate should be educated to degree level in Business Management, Supply Chain Management, or a relevant Engineering or Sciences field. Any additional relevant experience within a manufacturing or process-based role would be a benefit. Alternatively, in the absence of a degree, the successful candidate will have obtained 2+ years' experience within a manufacturing business, focusing on production processes and team leadership.

Key Skills

Strong teamwork, interpersonal and communication skills. You will be required to work with established teams to deliver shared objectives. A keen desire to learn about production processes. You want to learn from others and from established processes. A methodical and proactive approach to problem-solving. You will be able to identify issues, work to establish root cause, and lead an improvement plan. The drive to challenge existing processes and improve operations. Once you understand a way of working, your critical thinking allows you to suggest improvements and work with others to implement change. Exceptional IT skills, especially with Excel, including the ability to create, update, and improve complex spreadsheets. An analytical mindset with the capability to manage multiple priorities and tight deadlines.

Desirable

The following criteria is not essential, but would be advantageous:

At least 2 years of relevant operational experience in an FMCG (Fast-Moving Consumer Goods) environment. Working knowledge of Microsoft NAV, Business Central, Principal Index WMS, Power BI, Azure DevOps and Power Automate. Experience with Lean tools such as Six Sigma and DMAIC.

Why Dale Farm?

We have a lot to offer our employees at Dale Farm and we are committed to everyone's learning and development journey. In addition to a competitive salary commensurate with the role, as well as standard benefits such as 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays and contributary company pension, we also offer additional benefits such as Life Assurance, full wellbeing support through our Employee Assistance Programme, and enhanced Maternity and Paternity leave.


We promote an open and supportive culture which is based on our core values

Teamwork | Positivity | Resolve | Ambition | Curiosity | Accountability

You can find out more about life at Dale Farm on our LinkedIn and Facebook Career pages, and on our company website.



The closing date for applications is 5pm on

Monday 22

nd

September 2025.

Please apply

We are an Equal Opportunities Employer


Only applications from EU Nationals or those with a valid permit to work in the UK will be accepted


No unsolicited CVs from Agencies