Kitchen Manager
Reports to: Chief Culinary and Operations Officer
Payroll type: Salary (exempt) 40-45+ hours/ week
Days/hours work: Monday-Friday, Between hours of 8am-6pm, and Events as needed
Desired timing of hire: January/February 2025
Job Posting date: 12/13/2024
About La Soupe: La Soupe is the sole chef-led initiative in Cincinnati that bridges the gap between food waste and insecurity. We partner with volunteers and over 150 local grocers, farms, restaurants, manufacturers, and distributors to rescue an average of 25,000 lbs of fresh food weekly. Our team of chefs expertly transforms these rescued ingredients into restaurant-quality soupes and meals that are shared with community partners who feed the food insecure. La Soupe has rescued over 5 million pounds of food and shared over 3.5 million restaurant-quality servings since its inception. While La Soupe chefs and volunteers are addressing the immediate needs of food waste and food insecurity, La Soupe dietitians, teachers, and advocates are dedicated to creating sustainable change through our programs that educate and empower communities to waste less and live healthier.
Role: The Kitchen Manager is responsible for overseeing the kitchen and dish to ensure the quality and safety of all food produced at La Soupe. They are responsible for aiding in developing production systems, processes, and structures to support all La Soupe program needs requiring meal production. They are responsible for managing raw product and WIP (work in progress) inventory. Implements and manages the operational infrastructure of the kitchen, including safety standards.
Job Responsibilities
Team Leadership:
Manages staff including scheduling, hiring, onboarding, training and overseeing all work
Provide ongoing coaching, performance feedback, and development opportunities to enhance employee skills and motivation.
Foster a positive work environment that promotes teamwork, accountability, and exceptional quality
Read, understand, follow, and guide others in following the Employee Handbook and Sanitation and Safety Guideline Book
Collaborate: With Transform team, Education, Nourish, Dock, Community to improve quality, menus, processes and procedures
Innovation: Is a thought leader of new ways to transform product and avoid waste, adhere to and seek out efficient ways to be up to date with in house recycling/repurposing
Health and Safety: Sets Standards, ensure staff and volunteers understand and adhere to standards, policies, and procedures, Creates logs, forms as needed
Admin: Proficient in Google Drive, Microsoft Word, Inventory Systems, and other related software
La Soupe Ambassador: Attends events on time, professional appearance, Informed about La Soupes mission, operations, and projects. Ability to be the lead and point person for a variety of events.
Communication:
with Sous Chefs about tasks of the day, delegation, development, sets priorities and deadlines. Continuous walk-throughs to establish critical action of food usage and organization.
with Shipping and Receiving to monitor incoming food items quality and usage destinations
with the Partner Relations Director for Share quantities, community needs, and forecasting
with Events Coordinator to plan appropriate menus and lead event execution
with Retail Manager to plan initiatives on the menu items
with CCOO and executive team to develop goals, strategy and budgets
With all other department leads to support la soupe’s programs and mission (Volunteer, Food as Medicine, Inspire and Innovation, and Education, etc
Culinary Leadership: Oversee kitchen operations and maintain high culinary standards and training, while ensuring consistency in food quality and presentation.
Volunteer Liaison: Collaborates with Volunteer leadership to help create positive enriching experiences for volunteers while maintaining safety, productivity, and quality
Menu Development: Designs innovative menu items, taking into account seasonal ingredients and current food trends. Creates and executes menus for daily specials, special events, and catering.
Performance Management: Oversee the performance of kitchen staff by conducting regular evaluations, providing feedback, and implementing professional development plans. Conduct annual performance reviews and address disciplinary issues as needed, in alignment with organizational policies.
Inventory Management: Manage food inventory, ordering supplies, and ensuring proper storage and handling to minimize waste. Work with dock and Sous Chef to assure proper implementation of the inventory system. Works to set and achieve production goals set through week, month and year.
Cost Control: Sets yearly budget, and monitors food/labor/supplies costs and implements strategies to optimize profitability without compromising quality.
Quality Assurance: Ensure compliance with health and safety regulations, maintaining cleanliness and sanitation in the kitchen, test made soups through QR process and gather information on how to improve.
Recipe Standardization: Develop and maintain standardized recipes and cooking procedures to ensure consistency across all dishes. Quality check all transformed products. Oversee proper labeling for allergens/ingredients
Problem Solving: Address and resolve any kitchen-related or staffing issues that arise, ensuring smooth operations
Development: Leads/mentors/sets goals and executes furthering education of self and others
Community Outreach: Involved with activities in pillars of Inspire, Nourish, Educate
Facility: Will address issues before becoming outstanding, may become lead contact for certain contractors
Skills and Education Requirements
Certified Level 2 Sanitation Cert by State of Ohio
HACCP Certified preferred
Management of large culinary staff 4+ years
Self Motivator, sees big picture, can recognize priorities of tasks
Warm and friendly, highly flexible, takes feedback
Creative problem solver
Food enthusiast
Desire to help others
Compensation: Commensurate with experience
Benefits
11+ Paid Holidays, Free Lunch, Free parking
Health Insurance with company contribution. Family health insurance, and employee vision, and dental are provided at employee cost.
401(k)plan - no match, life insurance and AD&D
5 Sick days annually and PTO after 90 days of employment
Get to work with best crew in the city while helping communities
To Apply: Send resume and cover letter to Miranda Maszk to miranda@lasoupe.org.
Physical Demands and Work Environment: The physical demands and work environment characteristics described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
Kitchen role: While performing the duties of this job the employee is regularly required to stand; walk; sort, and lift. The employee frequently is required to climb or balance and stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl. The employee is occasionally required to sit. The employee must regularly lift and/or move up to 50 pounds. The employee should possess stamina for physical work. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and ability to adjust focus. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is frequently exposed to wet and/or humid conditions; moving mechanical parts; fumes or airborne particles; outside weather conditions; extreme cold and extreme heat. The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate to loud.
Equal opportunity: La Soupe, Inc. values a diverse and inclusive work environment where every team member matters. All qualified applicants for this position will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.