Head of Catering

Arena Racing Company; Nottingham; On-site; GBP 35,000 - 50,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading hospitality and catering provider at Nottingham Greyhound Stadium seeks a Head of Catering to oversee back-of-house operations. This role includes managing kitchen staff, ensuring food quality and hygiene compliance, and collaborating with various internal teams. The ideal candidate has experience as a Head Chef, understands HACCP, and has strong leadership skills. This position offers a dynamic working environment with duties on race days and events.

Qualifications

• Experienced as a Head Chef in high-quality operations.
• Strong leadership skills and ability to manage kitchen staff.
• Good understanding of purchasing systems, technical packages, and IT.

Responsibilities

• Oversee food-led catering operations and manage kitchen activities.
• Implement and maintain Food Safety Management System.
• Control portion sizes and manage kitchen staff rotas.

Skills

Experience as a Head Chef

Strong understanding in HACCP

Leadership skills

Excellent communication skills

Tools

Purchasing systems

Indicater catering system

Job description

Overview

We are looking for a passionate and knowledgeable Head of Catering to join our team at Nottingham Greyhound Stadium!

About the role

This role oversees the back-of-house, food-led catering operations at Nottingham Greyhound Stadium. You will manage all kitchen and snack bar activities, ensuring high food quality, hygiene compliance, cost control, and strong staff relations, while meeting legal, health, safety, and HACCP standards. You’ll be responsible for supervising Chefs, Trainees, and Kitchen Porters (full-time, casual, and agency), covering all food preparation for both race and non-race days. The role may involve travel to other sites and requires a flexible working pattern to support race days, EVH functions, and events, both on-site and remotely.

Responsibilities

• Liaise with Group Head of Catering and Head of Purchasing, Food Safety, Nutrition & Environmental to meet revenue and cost targets; manage purchasing within budget and ensure nominated spend targets are achieved.
• Oversee use of the Indicater catering system for finance reporting, stock takes, menu planning, allergen tracking, and monitoring unit spend.
• Implement and maintain company Food Safety Management System; ensure compliance with EHO, HACCP, hygiene standards, and correct allergen display.
• Plan kitchen resources based on function sheets; manage food ordering, preparation, cooking, service, and quality control across all events.
• Control portion sizes and waste to protect gross profit; supervise kitchen cleaning and ensure all line cleaning is completed and maintained.
• Manage rotas and allocate workloads for full-time, casual, and agency kitchen staff; record absences and maintain operational efficiency.
• Train staff on food safety, health & safety, and hygiene practices; conduct job performance reviews and support development.
• Liaise with clients, internal teams, and local authority inspectors; support menu planning and ensure clear communication across departments.
• Key Performance Indicators

Key Performance Indicators

• Controlling Variable Labour to Budget & providing explanation for deviations
• Driving recruitment / retention of direct casual staff. Reducing overall agency usage
• Managing Site Spend limits
• Driving Food Spend per head across Racing and None-racing
• Controlling set Food Margins
• Leading Communication / planning with Sales, On-site Teams and Marketing
• Maintain service levels to the highest standard.

The person we are looking for

• Experience as a Head Chef in high quality operation
• Strong understanding in HACCP, nutrition & allergens
• Good understanding of purchasing systems, technical packages & I.T.
• Strong leadership skills
• Excellent communicator
• Passionate about the kitchen environment and about our product
• Works well under pressure. Organised systematic and process driven

Equality, diversity and inclusion

We are an equal opportunities employer and do not discriminate on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, marital or civil partner status, pregnancy or maternity, gender reassignment, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, disability or age. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you have a disability that requires reasonable adjustments, please let us know; we will ensure that individuals with additional needs are provided reasonable adjustments to participate in the job application or interview process and to perform essential job functions. We understand the value that diversity brings to our business and we are striving to create a working environment that is inclusive, psychologically and physically safe and ensures everyone can be heard and valued for their contributions.