Chef Manager (Maternity Cover) - Hook Infant & Junior School

Compass Group UK & Ireland; England; On-site; GBP 32,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading catering company in the United Kingdom is seeking a Chef Manager (Maternity Cover) for Hook Infant & Junior Schools. The role involves managing kitchen operations, ensuring quality food preparation, and building strong relationships with clients. Ideal candidates should have experience in food service, excellent communication and supervisory skills, and a commitment to customer satisfaction. This position offers a salary of £32,000 per annum, a term-time only contract, and various benefits including holiday pay and a pension scheme.

Benefits

Excellent work/life balance

Holiday pay

NEST pension scheme

Employee Assistance Programme

Training and development

Discount membership through Perks at Work

Qualifications

• Ability to prepare delicious food.
• Experience managing kitchens, including Health & Safety.
• Skills in food delivery management and client relationships.

Responsibilities

• Prepare food and manage kitchen operations.
• Oversee food deliveries and ensure excellent service.
• Develop working relationships with clients and customers.

Skills

Passionate about food and customer service

Excellent communication skills

Supervisory skills

Financially astute

Education

Craft background with qualifications/experience

Job description

Job Introduction

Pabulum Catering are now recruiting for a Chef Manager (Maternity Cover) to help us deliver exceptional food experiences to our children at Hook Infant & Junior Schools.

The school has a lovely team in a well cared for school. You will have a close relationship with the school, be responsible for a well-established kitchen and be dedicated to providing the best for all children.

As a Chef Manager, you will be working within an enthusiastic and hard‑working team to create an outstanding experience for the school.

In return we offer an excellent work/life balance, support and a fantastic company culture for a business committed to providing healthy food to children. At Pabulum, you're important; without our employees we wouldn't be where we are today with such a strong, innovative, and constantly growing business.

With over 120 sites across Southern England there's plenty of opportunity for you to grow, learn and develop.

Your key responsibilities will include:

• Preparing our delicious food
• Managing the main aspects of the kitchens including Health & Safety and Training & Development. You will also have the unit bookwork to keep up to date.
• Receiving and managing food deliveries and managing storage.
• With a reputation for excellent service and fabulous food, we always put our customers first. As one of our Unit Managers we expect you want to do the same by developing a great working relationship with clients, team, and customers, you will be able to ensure that the catering contract is always growing in the right direction.

Our ideal Chef Manager will be:

• Passionate about food and great customer service.
• A fantastic communicator who works well as part of a team.
• Excellent communication skills throughout our customer and client journey are necessary.
• Excellent supervisory skills being the real key to managing, developing, and motivating a large team.
• You will need to be financially astute, but don't worry, we will provide full training in all our processes and software systems.
• A craft background with qualifications/experience to match.

Role details and benefits include

• £32,000 per annum
• Monday to Friday – 40 hours a week
• Excellent work/life balance due to term‑time only contract
• Holiday pay
• NEST pension scheme
• Comprehensive Employee Assistance Programme
• Consistent training and development
• Perks at Work – discount membership
• Excellent work/family life balance due to term‑time only contract

At Pabulum there are three basic ingredients for your role:

• The food - Here at Pabulum, we take our values so seriously that we put Education, Passion, Sensation, and Innovation forefront of everything we do. 94 % of our food is freshly prepared on site every day, using 75 % British produce and little or no frozen or processed foods.
• The people - Happy customers always come back for more, so we expect you to ensure they have an excellent customer experience.
• And you - We are recruiting for a Catering Assistant to join our positive and professional team.

As you will be working in education, you must provide two employment/character references, and we’ll also carry out an Enhanced DBS / Criminal Record Check which we will pay for.

Interested in becoming part of the Pabulum family?

Please apply online.

Job Reference: com/1811/42335001/52776135/BU #Pabulum

CH&CO, a part of Compass Group UK&I, is committed to fostering an environment where every individual can truly be themselves at work and has equal opportunities to advance in their careers. We strive to build a culture that respects and celebrates the unique talents, beliefs, backgrounds, and abilities of all our team members. We want our colleagues to feel valued, empowered to reach their full potential, and to thrive – because diversity is our strength!