Growth-Driven Head of Operations – Food & Beverage

Lime Talent Limited; Southampton; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Lime Talent is partnering with an ambitious food and drink business to recruit a Head of Operations reporting to the Founder. You will lead end-to-end operations across production, procurement, planning, inventory and fulfilment, combining hands-on leadership with scalable processes for sustainable growth.

This role offers broad ownership within an entrepreneurial setting, with the chance to develop a talented team and directly impact quality, service and profitability.

Qualifications

• Experience leading operations or supply chain in a growing food, drink or FMCG business.

Responsibilities

• Develop and deliver the operational strategy, aligning capacity, resources and investment with business growth.
• Lead and develop the operations team, setting priorities, responsibilities and performance measures.
• Oversee production, including scheduling, capacity planning, maintenance and continuous improvement.
• Maintain standards across product quality, food safety, health and safety, traceability and compliance.
• Build demand and supply planning processes, balancing availability and working capital.
• Lead supplier sourcing, negotiations and performance management across ingredients, packaging and services.
• Manage third-party logistics relationships and improve warehousing, distribution and fulfilment across B2B and D2C.
• Develop processes and capacity to support ecommerce growth.
• Coordinate delivery of new product launches from sourcing to fulfilment.
• Improve systems, reporting and stock visibility to reduce costs.

Skills

Manufacturing ops

Procurement

Demand planning

Inventory mgmt

3PL management

Ecommerce fulfilment

People development

Strategic problem solving

Job description

Lime Talent is partnering with an ambitious food and drink business to recruit a Head of Operations reporting to the Founder. You will lead end-to-end operations across production, procurement, planning, inventory and fulfilment, combining hands-on leadership with scalable processes for sustainable growth.

This role offers broad ownership within an entrepreneurial setting, with the chance to develop a talented team and directly impact quality, service and profitability.