ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

The essential duties and responsibilities of this position include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Support in development of menus, recipes, processes, solutions, standards, training and merchandising for fresh prepared foods and perishable departments

• Develop and maintain milestone calendar for all R&D relate items/projects/events and launches to ensure timelines are met.

• Provide support and leadership to R&D and merchandising teams to ensure successful implementation and merchandising of fresh food programs

• Work collaboratively with all fresh food departments and vendors to develop and implement programs

• Implement programs across company retail sites working in close collaboration with store operations in both developing operationally sound programs and rollouts

• Support consumer insights and brand marketing teams to translate their learning’s into actionable fresh food programs through effective development and implementation

• Assist in establishing labor structure and accountability of culinary and support positions at store level

• Train/cross train and develop fresh food store staff in all aspects of production, inventory controls, food safety, merchandising and interactive customer service

• Trains Operators on existing or new recipes or procedures. Conducts presentation on product/food preparation.

• Responsible for product evaluation, including whole-time and yield studies, as input to product costing and portion control. Develops training materials for Operators on how to correctly handle new products and recipes.

• Assist in developing training materials and curriculums to standardize processes, recipes and practices

• Proven leadership in complex environment, leading teams with both direct and indirect reports

• Ensure close coordination and collaboration with all fresh department directors, merchandisers and departments leads, as well as the operation team during all stages of development

• Maintain strong knowledge of industry trends and work with sourcing to incorporate into business as appropriate.

• Optimize sales and profits in all programs, menus, recipes and operations standards to ensure company financial goals are met

• Ensure all company, state and federal regulations are met in all aspects of performance and products

• Perform hands on direct cooking and food production as needed