Packaging Manager at Cerelia Bakery Canada LP – Mississauga, Ontario

About Cérélia
Cérélia is a leading food manufacturing company with small-town roots. We are dough and batter experts and proudly serve rolled dough, cookies, pancake and waffle products across Europe, Asia, and North America.

Cérélia’s products are commercialized under its clients’ brands, both retailers and industrial companies, as well as under its own brands: English Bay Bakery, JusRol, Croustipate, Jan, Pop! Bakery and Crêapan in particular. While we continue to grow and expand, our history of trade partnership, production excellence, well-founded innovation, and sustainable development is deeply rooted in more than 40 years of industry know-how.

About Cérélia Canada
As part of the global Cérélia Group, headquartered in France, Cérélia Canada partners with major retailers and food brands to deliver high-quality, innovative products. It is committed to food safety, product innovation, and continuous improvement, while fostering a collaborative and dynamic workplace for its employees.

Position Summary
The Packaging Manager leads all packaging strategy, development, optimization, and lifecycle management. This role is responsible for ensuring that all packaging components—from primary retail packaging to secondary and tertiary cases—are designed, sourced, cost-optimized, compliant, and work well in our manufacturing environment.

The Packaging Manager acts as the organization’s subject-matter expert for structural packaging development, sustainability, EPR compliance, Packaging specifications and sourcing with various suppliers, BOM governance for pack components and intelligence.

The role directly influences customer satisfaction, regulatory compliance, and corporate sustainability goals through rigorous packaging development and continuous improvement.

Primary Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end development, testing, and launch of primary, secondary, and tertiary packaging, including engineering reviews, trials, ship tests, shelf-life validation, and first production runs.
• Drive cost, performance, and sustainability optimization through value engineering, material changes, alternate suppliers, and sustainable packaging solutions aligned with CSR and EPR requirements.
• Own packaging BOMs, specifications, labels, and master data across ERP, TraceGains, customer portals, and supplier systems, ensuring accurate costing, version control, traceability, and audit readiness.
• Establish and maintain case, pallet, and label standards (including Domino/master case labels), providing cross-functional guidance and training.
• Source, qualify, and manage packaging suppliers and printers, supporting negotiations on pricing, MOQs, lead times, and tooling.
• Ensure supplier execution and availability by managing print quality, production runs, ETAs, risk escalation, and plant supply continuity.
• Lead artwork development and print approval from concept to release, coordinating agencies, printers, customers, and internal stakeholders.
• Ensure compliance with CFIA, FDA, bilingual labeling, nutrition, allergen, UPC, and GTIN requirements.
• Act as the primary packaging subject-matter expert, supporting operations with runability issues, print defects, structural failures, launches, transitions, samples, and specification changes.
• Manage packaging inventory transitions and lifecycles to minimize obsolescence, mitigate shortages, and support accurate forecasting and continuity of supply.
• Lead packaging sustainability and EPR reporting, providing data and documentation to support corporate CSR KPIs and regulatory obligations in Canada and the U.S.

• Bachelor’s degree in technical field, preferably in packaging engineering, graphic design or related field
• Minimum 5-7 years of progressive experience required in a similar packaging role within food manufacturing or CPG
• Strong knowledge of packaging elements from substrates to design combined with strong technical knowledge of the print process
• Experience building and managing packaging BOMs, specifications and ERP
• Hands-on experience from packaging development and prototyping to commercialization
• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional teams and manage multi-SKU packaging projects
• Proficient with word, excel and GANTT charts
• Interaction with internal and external stakeholders (packaging suppliers, OEMs, customers)
• Strong expertise in packaging specification creation and management

• Annual base pay of between CAD$97K-$102K
• Fully Employer Paid Medical, Dental, Vision, and Life.
• 3 Weeks Paid Vacation
• 4 Paid Floater Days per year
• RRSP match
• Clean and safe production facility
• Friendly working environment
• Career advancement opportunities

We thank all applicants for their interest in this opportunity. However, only candidates selected for an interview will be contacted. We kindly request no telephone inquiries regarding the status of applications.

DISCLAIMER: Cérélia is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to providing employment accommodation in accordance with the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. If contacted for an employment opportunity or testing, please advise Human Resources if you require accommodation.

Job Type: Full-time