Senior Development Chef
Founded by brothers Jonathan and Alex Petrides in 2017, allplants makes plant-based living exciting and easy, delivering mouthwatering, healthier food to busy homes UK-wide. The science is irrefutable. Eating more plants is the #1 way to help yourself and our planet thrive. That’s why, at allplants we’ve started by making eating more plants a supremely positive and exciting choice: a fiesta of flavour, not a fast.
Since launching in 2017, allplants is already the leading plant-based living platform in Europe having served up >7 million meals to UK homes who subscribe for feel-good, healthier living. This track-record resulted in a record-breaking Series B raise in Summer 2021 and our launch into retail.
The plans for 2024 and beyond are as exciting as they are delicious - growing the product range to serve a growing community and expanding the production space in Blackhorse Road (The Greenhouse).
The role:
Senior Development Chef (Brand + B2B)
This is a new role spearheading Food Development at allplants, spanning both our existing Branded product channels (DTC, Grocery and all other retail), as well as the development delivery to support the inception and adaptations of allplants food products for B2B partnerships into Food Service, Co-Manufacturing and more. This is a perfect role for a talented, fast rising Development Chef who enjoys creative breadth, commercial responsibility and leadership.
The role is a core player in the Operations team, as a lead partner and interface with the Commercial, Brand and Marketing teams, as well as working very closely with the Founder/CEO to develop new food solutions that can be commercialised and brought to market, to successfully scale-up more plants on plates (propelling our north star metric: number of meals served, +7 million and cooking!).
You will be the epicentre of our food obsessed culture and responsible for designing the menu variety and owning the quality of allplants food enjoyed UK wide and beyond. This will also include working with new partners to allplants to develop their food propositions for production in our kitchen, or curate allplants bespoke menu items with food service partners taking the best from our award-winning range into new settings.
Fundamentally this food development role will require entrepreneurial creativity and commercial flair to ensure we are seducing consumers with amazing flavour and inventive dishes. You will have the freedom and backing to drive and deliver pioneering plant-based greatness into new channels for allplants.
What you'll be doing
1/ Creative force and chef expert behind the food.
- allplants Food Development - partner with marketing and commercial teammates to architect and upgrade the next generation of allplants dishes, where your role is to bring plant-based recipe expertise and market trends to guide the finalised roadmap and dish development program. This will include working on seasonal collabs and our Guest-Chef-In-Residence ranges. You will then be autonomous in devising the recipes and developing the concepts, alongside the Technical partner, to the point of launch. The scope of food development could include chef and brand collabs, redesigning existing dishes (EPD) and devising the new product development (NPD) roadmap.
- B2B Food Development - bring Development Chef creativity to our B2B ventures: for example leading the design of killer branded menus and menu items for hotels, catering, restaurants or helping to steer and craft suitable offerings with select new business partners looking to benefit from our world-class kitchen and food quality.
- Plant-Based Curious and Pioneering Appetite - tuned into food and culinary trends, you will ensure all dishes are inventive and delicious whilst ensuring broad enough appeal. They must also meet nutritional guidelines, target cost constraints, brand values, and be feasible to deliver quality at scale;
- Growth Mindset - You will be a Development Chef that leads with a Kaizen mindset - bringing energetic relentlessness to raise the bar on food quality as well as maximum commercial impact (COGS).
2/ Building the Food Innovation Team
- This role requires someone who is a strong leader of self and proven track record of collaborating cross functionally with a broader Food Ops Team;
- While the role is initially a Food Development team of one (with many collaborators alongside you), we still need somebody who can scale into an accomplished people manager as the needs of our Food Innovation function are set to transformatively expand in the next 2 years and beyond
- When required you will then be hiring resource into your team. You will need to assess what the requirements we are looking for and lead the hiring process to ensure we can continue to keep up with our innovation demands.
3/ Savvy Commercial Mindset
- Be part of the core launch team for the new business units, in Food Service, Co-Manufacturers, Restaurants etc. You will be responsible for ensuring the food offerings deliver on flavour as well as the commercial brief.
- Work with Procurement and Production to drive down ingredient costs across high volume dishes to realise cost savings;
- Track and prioritise a continuous EPD/NPD project list to improve and optimise our range from a flavour and margin perspective;
- Always looking for opportunities to maximise commercial benefit whilst maximising flavour and quality.
What you'll need*
- A background in professional cookery, with extensive knowledge of how to cook delicious plant based food who ideally has also worked in a business producing prepared meals.
- Experience in Food Development, you know how to blend chefmanship with cross functional working and have the knowledge of what it takes to develop awesome food;
- Excellent palate and ability to engage others in the joy of food
- Leadership experience, including having a commercial mindset, managing and delivering on multiple projects at once.;
- Collaborative skills balanced with a non-negotiable approach to food quality being the highest priority
- Experience working to budget and being a creative problem solver
- Passion for the allplants brand and mission: “to inspire the planet to eat more plants, creating a better world for people and planet”.
*There's quite a bit on this list. If you feel you have some of the experience but not all of it, please do still apply. We love developing our team 💪
What we offer
🌍 Be part of a certified B-Corp, dedicated to using commercial growth to better serve people & planet
🏖 24 days holiday (plus 8 bank holidays)
🎂 plus an additional day off for your birthday
🧘♀️ Health & Well-being cover with Medicash
📚 Yearly learning allowance
💻 Hybrid working model
🕰 Flexible working hours
💪 Gym discounts
🚲 Cycle to work scheme
🍼Maternity/Paternity/Adoption Leave: 16 weeks paid leave for primary caregiver & 8 weeks for secondary caregiver
💔 Pregnancy loss support leave
🚀 Real opportunities to accelerate your learning & growth (we see 1 year with us being equivalent to 2 year elsewhere)
💰 Competitive salary and stock options from day one
🌱 50% discount on allplants products
🥗 Free healthy lunches, breakfast and snacks, and lots of allplants tastings
✨ Chance to join one of Escape The City’s Top 100 companies to work for & #7 in Startups' Top 100 most disruptive and innovative startups✌️
✨ Chance to join one of Escape The City’s best companies to work for & Startups' #7 in most disruptive and innovative startup✌️
At allplants diversity is about embracing differences, creating possibilities and growing together, in terms of our business but also our culture. We fully embrace diversity by giving full and fair consideration to all applicants, and proactively support the growth and development of our team members, regardless of age, disability, gender, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy, maternity or family structure.
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- Team
- Innovation Kitchen
- Locations
- The Greenhouse (HQ & Production)
- Remote status
- Hybrid Remote
Senior Development Chef
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