At Royal Van Zanten, our people and our shared passion make us unique. It is our purpose to pass on the passion that we share for our flowers and plants and for growing our business.
Van Zanten Breeding is an innovative and internationally operating breeding company in the dynamic world of flowers and plants. With a strong home base in the Netherlands, clients on all continents and production locations in the Netherlands, Uganda, South Africa and Colombia, we are busy every day breeding, propagating and marketing beautiful, inspiring and sustainable varieties. Passion and enjoyment in our work is paramount!
For our vitro laboratory in Brits in South Africa we are currently seeking to recruit an
Manager Laboratory – m/f
who, under the supervision of the Managing Director in South Africa, will co-lead and direct the day-to-day activities in our tissue culture laboratory.
This is a fulltime on-site position in Brits, South Africa.
Your responsibilities
In this role you will manage the various teams and coach, train and motivate the team-leaders. You are also responsible for quality management, production planning and management reports. In addition, you will focus on:
- Manage and supervise all laboratory operations, including tissue culture production, research projects, and lab maintenance.
- Coordinate scheduling of production batches to meet commercial objectives.
- Maintain accurate records of experiments, production data, and inventory (media, consumables, explants).
- Troubleshoot problems related to contamination, poor growth, and protocol deviations.
- Ensure compliance with all health, safety, and environmental regulations.
- Manage laboratory budget, procurement of supplies, and maintenance of equipment.
- Support external audits and certification processes (e.g., MPS – Sustainability).
- Development and optimization of initiatives and protocols in order to improve quality
- Implementing procedures
- Personnel management, including staff planning, initiate dialogues in the context of the performance cycle, participating in consultation with personnel representatives and counsels , including unions, shop stewards, etc., in collaboration with the Managing Director.
- Support the Managing Director in general and to deputize for him in all appropriate cases.
You are unique
- You are proactive, accurate and have good leadership skills
- You have good communication skills, both verbal and written
- You are responsible for ensuring high quality standards of quality, productivity and safety, while driving innovation and continuous improvement
- You are analytical and work in a structured manner
We are looking for candidates who
- Relevant Higher Professional education in Biological Sciences or equivalent
- Knowledge and experience in the field of tissue culture propagation
- Good communication skills, both verbal and written in English
- Authority and essentially having natural leadership qualities
- Meticulous and quality-focused
- Analytical and problem-solving abilities
- Willingness to travel internationally
Royal Van Zanten has a lot to offer
We offer you a career in an international work field and an opportunity to keep developing your work and yourself. It is our strategy to invest in the continuous development of our people, products, processes and the overall quality.
We are ambitious, and we hope that you are too. We offer a competitive salary, great secondary conditions and – most importantly – a passionate team of colleagues that will make every day of working with Royal Van Zanten a pleasure.
Are you enthusiastic? We would love to hear from you. You can send us your application at sollicitatie@royalvanzanten.com
About Royal Van Zanten
Royal Van Zanten is an international leader in breeding and propagation of cut flowers and potted plants. Our goal is to pass on the passion that has characterized our organization since its founding in 1862.
Our shared passion is one of the 5 values that characterize our culture: Passion, Quality, Better every day, Ambition and Royal. This last value is inspired by the Royal designation our company received in 1901. Today, the value stands for customer focus and respect for the people around us. Royal Van Zanten employs over 1,200 people, at our home base in the Netherlands and at our international breeding and production sites in Uganda, South Africa and Colombia.
