Food Service Assistant

Coventry City Council; Quinton; On-site; GBP 11,000 - 14,000; Part time

Job summary

Coventry City Council is seeking a Food Service Assistant for Quinton Lodge and Housing with Care Services to deliver a welcoming, high-quality lunchtime service for older adults. You will be involved in food preparation, menu planning, stock management and ensuring meals meet dietary, cultural and medical needs.

This role requires independence, good communication, and a commitment to food safety while serving varied dietary requirements.

Qualifications

• Experience in a catering, hospitality or food preparation environment and ability to work independently, organise workload and maintain high standards.
• Good communication skills and understanding of food safety and hygiene.
• Willingness to achieve Level 2 Food Safety.
• Reliable, flexible and customer-focused.

Responsibilities

• Prepare and present a hot lunchtime service.
• Prepare meals, including some fresh produce and vegetables.
• Order supplies, rotate stock and manage food waste.
• Support the management team to plan menus for varied dietary requirements.
• Maintain high standards of food hygiene and kitchen cleanliness.
• Complete food safety checks and records.
• Help ensure compliance with Health & Safety and food hygiene regulations.
• Provide a friendly, responsive service to tenants.

Skills

Catering experience

Food preparation

Communication skills

Organisational skills

Education

Level 2 Food Safety

Job description

In line with our One Coventry Values, we want to ensure that our communities are represented across our workforce. A vital part of this is ensuring we are a truly inclusive organisation that encourages diversity in all respects, including diversity of thinking. We particularly welcome applicants from minority ethnic, LGBT+, disabled and neurodiverse communities to make a real difference to our residents so that equity and respect remains at the heart of everything we do.

Our Values are:

• Open and fair: We are fair, open, and transparent.
• Nurture and develop: We help and encourage everyone to be their best and do their best.
• Engage and empower: We talk and listen to others, working together as one.
• Create and innovate: We embrace new ways of working to continuously improve.
• Own and be accountable: We work together to deliver the best services for our residents.
• Value and respect: We put diversity and inclusion at the heart of all we do.

We value diverse perspectives and experiences and are striving to create a workplace culture that is inclusive, is accepting of all and is free from discrimination and bias.

We have a simple vision and strategy that defines what we are trying to achieve, our purpose and our approach which underpin the principles of Adult Social Care, and we continue to work in support of this.

In a simple sense all our work, at whatever level should continue to support the strategy of: ‘Providing support, in the least intrusive manner possible, based on the assets, resources and abilities that are available to people’.

What is the job role?

Quinton Lodge and Housing with Care Services

We're looking for a Food Service Assistant to help deliver a welcoming, high-quality meal service for older adults living in our Housing with Care schemes.

This is far more than a food serving role. You'll be involved in food preparation, menu planning, stock management, ordering supplies, maintaining food hygiene standards, and ensuring lunchtime meals meet a range of dietary, cultural and medical needs.

What you'll do

• Prepare and present a hot lunchtime service
• Prepare meals, including some fresh produce and vegetables
• Order supplies, rotate stock and manage food waste
• Support the management team to plan menus for varied dietary requirements
• Maintain high standards of food hygiene and kitchen cleanliness
• Complete food safety checks and records
• Help ensure compliance with Health & Safety and food hygiene regulations
• Provide a friendly, responsive service to tenants

Hours

We have one permanent 25-hour position, plus a number of casual/zero hour contracts available.

Working hours are generally between 9:30am and 3:00pm, rostered across a 5-day working week. We operate a 365-day service model.

If you're looking for a varied catering role where you can make a real difference to people's wellbeing, we'd love to hear from you.

This post is exempted under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and as such appointment to this post will be conditional upon the receipt of a satisfactory response to a check of police records via Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).

All candidates must have the Right to Work in the UK. We are currently not offering sponsorship for this role.

Who are we looking for?

You’ll have experience in a catering, hospitality or food preparation environment and be able to work independently, organise your workload and maintain high standards.

You’ll also:

• Have good communication skills
• Understand the importance of food safety and hygiene
• Be willing to achieve (or already hold) Level 2 Food Safety
• Be reliable, flexible and customer-focused

If you need help or support to complete your application, please visit our accessibility page to see how we can assist you.

Guaranteed Interview Scheme - As part of our commitment to inclusion, we offer guaranteed interviews for specific groups of people. To qualify, you'll need to meet the minimum requirements for the role and identify with one of the below criteria:

• Members of the Armed Forces and veterans
• Are currently in care or have previously been in care
• If you consider yourself to be disabled or if you have a long-term health condition

For full details on the application process please read the attached document on our jobs page labelled 'Coventry City Council Application Process'. We recognise that you might use AI tools to help with your application. While these tools can be useful, please make sure that all information you provide about your experience, skills, and qualifications is accurate. What matters most to us is hearing about your experience and the achievements that truly reflect you!

Interview date(s): 15th Oct

About Coventry

Coventry has a proud, innovative and creative spirit that throughout its history has seen communities come together to tackle problems and bring about real social change.

We are cutting-edge, challenging, youthful, vibrant and diverse.
At Coventry we are committed to excellence in everything we do. With around 5100 staff from a range of different backgrounds, our aim is to recruit and develop talented people who will focus on our customers, take responsibility, work together and find better ways of doing things.

To deliver the best services to our residents, we need the best people working for us to make a difference to our communities.

The following content displays a map of the jobs location - Quinton Lodge, Copthorne House