Engineering/Continuous Improvement Intern

About Sara Lee Frozen Bakery

Sara Lee desserts have always stood for incredible flavor and superior value in the frozen food aisle and away from home markets. For the first time in over 60 years, Sara Lee is operating independently as Sara Lee Frozen Bakery, a collection of top brands united in quality and innovation, including Sara Lee®, Chef Pierre®, Van’s®, Bistro Collection®, Superior on Main® and Cyrus O’Leary’s®.

Sara Lee Frozen Bakery is proud to take these iconic brands into a new era and to continue the evolution that transformed one small Chicago bakery into an American institution. Using carefully sourced ingredients and time-honored recipes, the company is committed to making life’s moments a little sweeter, putting its customers first and discovering new ways to make everyone’s favorite foods even better.

Working for Sara Lee

Our vision is to be the world’s most beloved bakery by creating irresistible foods, growing with our customers, and delivering value for all. We believe that each of us has unique points of difference and experience to offer. We will achieve success through collaboration and innovation in an environment where employees feel empowered to execute with speed. 

Summary:

The Sara Lee Frozen Bakery Engineering/CI Internship program will provide the opportunity for an intern to hone analytical and strategic thinking skills while working on immersive and challenging projects. This is a 10-week summer program that seeks to help you develop an understanding of the food industry, learn about our company and its operations and appreciate how each discipline and department contributes to the success of our products and customer partnerships. You will have exciting professional and social engagement activities throughout the summer that provide the opportunity to work with senior leaders and network with your intern peers.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Contribute to a multitude of projects that emerge in a fast-paced environment including but not limited to continuous improvement, digital systems, equipment operation projects, and the final summer presentation project for the executive leadership team.
• Assist with maximizing true equipment capability while driving process for consistency.
• Work directly with operators to capture best practices and procedures for long term effectiveness. Create Standardization documents of best practices.
• Project management: Undertake 2 CI project start to finish to develop and implement efficiency gains.
• Redzone Utilization – Assist in development of the learning module tools and converting manual tracking for floor data to digital systems for maximization of Redzone utilization.

The position responsibilities outlined above are not to be construed as all encompassing. Other duties and responsibilities may be required and/or assigned as necessary.

Education and Skill Requirements:

• Current student
• Education curriculum focused on a degree relevant to the position applied for (Engineering, Business, Operations Management.)
• An overall GPA of 3.0 or higher (4.0 scale).
• Strong MS Office skills including advanced Microsoft Excel Skills
• Strong communication skills with the ability to interface effectively with key stakeholders at every level of the business
• Self-starter with the ability to work independently
• Experience working in cross functional teams
• Ability to work onsite in our Traverse City, MI or Tarboro, NC Plant from June to August 2026. 

Sara Lee Frozen Bakery provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.