This range is provided by Dish’d. Your actual pay will be based on your skills and experience — talk with your recruiter to learn more.
Base pay range
Dish’d – Restaurant Quality Virtual Brands
LOCATION: Uxbridge HQ (4 days onsite, 1-day WFH)
REPORTS TO: Co-Founder and Head of Product
ABOUT DISH’D
Dish’d is the UK’s fastest growing franchisor of virtual restaurant brands. Operating across more than 70 partner kitchens, we create delivery-first food brands and provide operators with the products, systems and training required to grow incremental revenue through delivery platforms.
Everything sits under one roof: development kitchen, manufacturing kitchen, testing kitchen and HQ.
We are now hiring a Head of Food to take full ownership of our food innovation pipeline, seasonal refreshes, product quality and menu execution. This role brings discipline, speed and structure to an area that has outgrown its current processes.
This is not a creative-only chef role.
It is a commercial food innovation position in a scaling, data-led virtual brand company.
THE ROLE
This is a high-impact, hands-on, commercially led culinary leadership role.
You will be responsible for:
* Innovating and building multiple delivery-first brands
* Refreshing and upgrading existing menus
* Owning the development kitchen, testing kitchen and liaison with the CPU
* Working closely with data, operations and onboarding teams
* Ensuring every new product is commercially viable, scalable and consistent
* Bringing pace, structure and ownership to the entire food development cycle
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
1. Menu Innovation and Brand Development
* Own the entire process from ideation to development to testing to production readiness to rollout
* Deliver two seasonal menu refreshes per brand each year
* Create one new brand or food category per quarter, understanding not all will scale
* Use market trends, competitor analysis and performance data to guide innovation
* Ensure menus suit non-specialist kitchens and are optimised for delivery reliability
2. Food Engineering and Development Kitchen Ownership
* Lead all activity in the development kitchen including recipe testing, costing and consistency
* Convert chef-led dishes into replicable, CPU-friendly, scalable products
* Document all recipes with accurate specs, yields, allergens and costings
* Engineer products to meet margin, preparation and operational constraints
3. CPU and Production Collaboration
* Work closely with the Production Kitchen Manager and CPU team
* Ensure manufacturing can execute all products efficiently and consistently
* Coordinate pilot runs of new items and approve production readiness
* Identify opportunities to centralise more components to improve consistency and reduce costs
4. Commercial, Costing and Menu Engineering
* Own the commercial viability of every product
* Collaborate with the data team to analyse profitability, speed, errors and menu mix
* Drive cost efficiencies through ingredient standardisation and process improvements
* Recommend delists, menu consolidation, price adjustments and rebuilds where necessary
5. Cross-Functional Leadership
* Partner with Marketing on brand positioning and launch plans
* Work with Operations to create simple training materials and rollout processes
* Collaborate with Onboarding to ensure smooth site adoption of new menus
* Provide clear, complete specifications and documentation to all teams
6. Governance, Standards and Execution
* Introduce structure into a currently inconsistent development process
* Remove ambiguity by ensuring every spec and process is exact and complete
* Become the subject-matter expert and reduce dependency on the founder
WHAT YOU NEED TO BRING
* Minimum 3 years in Development Chef, Culinary Innovation, NPD or Food Operations roles
* Experience designing menus for delivery or scalable QSR formats
* Strong understanding of commercial kitchens, food manufacturing and workflow
* Ability to balance creativity with discipline, consistency and structure
* Exceptional organisational skills with strong attention to detail
* Commercial and data literacy with comfort using performance metrics and costings
* Ability to collaborate closely with founders
* Comfortable working at pace with multiple concurrent projects
* Clear and concise communication style with no ambiguity
Referrals increase your chances of interviewing at Dish'd by 2x
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