Branch Cook, Supermarket Assistant

John Lewis Partnership; City Of London; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 60,000; Part time

Job summary

A leading UK retail partnership is seeking a Supermarket Assistant Branch Cook to work in the back-of-house and assist on the shop floor. You'll ensure high food hygiene standards and provide outstanding service to customers, engaging with Partners effectively. The role is part-time with shifts on weekends, offering a rewarding workplace culture focused on mutual respect and innovation.

Qualifications

• Experience of working as a cook in a catering or hospitality environment.
• Customer focused with the ability to engage Partners with the food on offer.
• Demonstrate commercial awareness, driving sales within the partner dining room.

Responsibilities

• Ensure the smooth running of the kitchen.
• Maintain a clean and safe kitchen environment.
• Provide excellent customer service on the shop floor.

Skills

Experience in catering or hospitality environment

Passion for food

Customer focused

Commercial awareness

Flexible and adaptable

Education

City & Guilds 706 1 and 2 or NVQ equivalent

Food Hygiene Certificate Level 2

Job description

About the role

As a Supermarket Assistant Branch Cook, you'll be working in our back-of-house of one of our shops in the Partner Dining Room, providing hot and cold food for Partners to enjoy during their break times. When not working in the kitchen, you'll support the wider shop floor team as a Supermarket Assistant, providing the distinct service and passion for food that our competitors can't compete with.

Responsibilities

• The smooth running of the overall kitchen with support and direction from the management team.
• Maintaining a clean, tidy, and safe kitchen environment.
• Ensuring portion control, preparation, storage methods and due diligence to avoid food wastage, helping to protect our profits.
• Adhering to high food hygiene standards.
• On the shop floor, providing great service to customers and supporting a variety of shop-keeping tasks including stock replenishment and ensuring shelves are full and products are in the right place at the right time for customers.
• Fulfilling online customer orders ready for our drivers to deliver shopping to customers' doors.
• Reducing wastage by following product due diligence and markdowns to those reaching their sell-by dates.
• Working with the wider shop team to support when needed including checkout support, managing Click & Collect orders, fulfilling on-demand customer orders and more.
• Maintain a safe and tidy working environment with general shopkeeping tasks.

Essential skills/experience

• Experience of working as a cook in a catering or hospitality environment.
• Passionate about food and serving a varied and nutritious menu.
• Customer focused with the ability to engage Partners with the food on offer.
• Demonstrate commercial awareness, driving sales within the partner dining room, whilst also controlling costs and wastage.
• Flexible and adaptable to be able to work between kitchen and shop floor as required.

Desirable skills/experience

• City & Guilds 706 1 and 2 or NVQ equivalent.
• Food Hygiene Certificate Level 2.

14.5 hours per week, working Saturdays 07:00-14:00 and Sundays 09:30-17:30.

The partnership

We’re the largest employee owned business in the UK and home of our cherished brands, John Lewis and Waitrose. We’re not just employees, we’re Partners, driven by our purpose to build a happier world.

We’re ruthlessly focused on being brilliant at retail. We continue to innovate, adapt and diversify. Never Knowingly Undersold on price, quality and service in John Lewis and passionately serving food-lovers in Waitrose.

As Partners we all share the responsibility of ownership and in its rewards. We use our voices to contribute to our success, working together through the good and challenging times, holding true to our behaviours and treating everyone with kindness and respect.

We all own making the Partnership somewhere we belong. Embracing our differences and creating an environment where we’re free to be ourselves and can THRIVE. Growing ourselves individually, and as a collective.

As Partners, we make all the difference. And, we all own it.

Important points to note:

It’s important to note that some of our roles are subject to pre-employment vetting (which may include DBS checks for successful candidates). If required, you’ll be informed and provided with information about vetting during the recruitment process and we encourage you to complete any vetting documents quickly to avoid delays. Any DBS checks required will be carried out by a third-party registered body and financial probity checks may also be required for some of our roles.

We occasionally close vacancies early in the event we receive a high volume of applications, and therefore, we recommend you apply early. If you require a reasonable adjustment due to a disability which means you may need longer to complete your application please contact us as soon as possible.

We want all of our Partners to have a good work-life balance and we support flexible working. This might mean flexible or compressed hours, job sharing or shorter hour contracts, where possible. Please discuss this further with the hiring manager during your interview.