Development Chef: Innovation & Launch Leader

Zest; Greater London; On-site; GBP 38,000 - 54,000; Full time

Job summary

Zest is recruiting a Development Chef to join its food development team in Greater London, taking recipes from idea through to launch and working closely with production and other teams to bring dishes to life.

You should have culinary training or hands-on kitchen experience and FMCG development know-how, with strong cooking skills and a collaborative, detail‑oriented mindset. The role involves storytelling through food, cost tracking, and scaling recipes for production.

Qualifications

• Culinary training or hands-on kitchen experience required.
• Experience developing food for FMCG is preferred.
• Excellent cooking skills and strong culinary knowledge.
• Confident communication and presentation, able to pitch ideas to all levels from floor to leadership.
• Strong organisation and the ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously.
• Sharp attention to detail and a can-do, team‑oriented attitude.

Responsibilities

• Lead recipe innovation and continuous improvement on live projects from concept to launch.
• Record every recipe and method precisely on the development system.
• Work with production to refine cooking and preparation methods.
• Present new and existing recipes at internal tastings and explain the story behind each dish.
• Scope new development projects and present findings to kick off ideas.
• Set quality benchmarks and run tastings to ensure best-in-class dishes.
• Create inspiring food presentations communicating ingredients and thinking behind recipes.
• Source new ingredients with procurement and technical colleagues, meeting brand standards.
• Ensure recipes are accurately costed and tracked through development.
• Support trials and scale-up into production, coaching site teams as needed.
• Benchmark kitchen-made samples against production output and perform quality checks.

Skills

Culinary training

Kitchen experience

FMCG food development

Cooking skills

Presentation skills

Project management

Attention to detail

Teamwork

Job description

Zest is recruiting a Development Chef to join its food development team in Greater London, taking recipes from idea through to launch and working closely with production and other teams to bring dishes to life.

You should have culinary training or hands-on kitchen experience and FMCG development know-how, with strong cooking skills and a collaborative, detail‑oriented mindset. The role involves storytelling through food, cost tracking, and scaling recipes for production.