Job Introduction
As we continue our mission to make people and nature happy through reinventing chocolate, we’re looking for a Quality & Food Safety Manager – UK Retail and Café Estate to join our Quality & Food Safety and Product Integrity Team on a permanent basis.
As Quality & Food Safety Manager, you will play a vital role in shaping and maintaining the highest standards of food safety and quality across our retail and café estate.
Acting as subject matter expert, you will promote a positive food safety culture by educating, supporting and influencing our teams to deliver best practice every day. From implementing robust food safety standards and ensuring regulatory compliance, to leading initiatives across HACCP, allergen management, auditing programmes, training, and customer complaints, you will continuously be at the heart of continuously driving best practice.
This is a great opportunity for someone passionate about quality, continuous improvement and making lasting impact across a dynamic retail environment.
As well as a competitive salary and a range of company benefits including private healthcare cover, enhanced maternity and paternity leave and Company pension contributions, you’ll receive 50% discount on all products, and a 70% discount for you and your guests when you stay at our Rabot Estate hideaway on the paradise island of Saint Lucia.
Here at Hotel Chocolat, we've adopted hybrid working where appropriate. For this role, it means that your time will be split between working onsite at one of our office locations (Royston, St. Neots, Huntingdon and Harpole), visiting our retail estate across the UK and working remotely from home.
What you’ll be doing….
The Quality & Food Safety (Q&FS) manager will be the point of contact for all relevant departments to provide clear direction and continuous improvement for retail and café food safety ensuring this is implemented to the highest standard across all stores.
- The development and Implementation of food safety policies, procedures and materials for all Hotel Chocolat retail café.
- Analyse, identify and support implementation of continuous improvement practices across our internal Quality and Food Safety Standard.
- Develop and deliver relevant food safety training as needed.
- Advise and support on the Café food safety prerequisite management programme for areas such as pest control, chemical suppliers, cleaning practises and waste management providing knowledge, advice and expertise relating to food safety and hygiene risks.
- Act as the principle contact for any café related food safety queries and complaints, ensuring they are fully reported, tracked, escalated, investigated and resolved in a timely manner.
- Contribute and consult on the launches of new store openings by providing technical assistance in relation to environment food safety considerations.
- Co-ordinate with key stakeholders for new café product launches ensuring all technical requirements are fulfilled including completing and providing new amended Allergen Matrices and approving updated point of sale and menu boards.
- Plan and conduct nutritional analysis testing for café related items using our 3rd party provider. Interpret results and produce standardised customer facing information.
- Develop relationships with pertinent regulatory agencies and enforcement officers, keep current on changes in regulations and standards that are relevant for the café and retail business.
- Cultivate key relationships with Store Managers, District Managers, Retail Operation Managers, Facilities teams. HSE and Learning and Development department, maintaining effective communication to influence, drive and implement projects and campaigns across the estate.
- Reporting and analysis of café food safety data and metrics to the Quality and Food Safety Senior Leadership Team (SLT). Utilise data and metric to drive insights and highlight areas for continuous improvements.
Who you are…
Essential
- Previous experience of working in a food safety focused role across Retail and Hospitality.
- Strong knowledge and understanding of food law, legislation, and regulations for the UK.
- Degree/HND/Level 4 in Food Science, Environmental Health, Food Safety or related discipline.
- Level 3 HACCP.
- Auditor trained.
Desirable
- A good understanding of commercial impact of operational decision making
- Train the Trainer qualified
- Strong Microsoft office skills (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
- Knowledge of food composition and nutrition
Who are we?
We’re one of the UK’s favourite premium chocolate brands, with a range of products spanning luxury gifts, alcohol and our pioneering drinking chocolate system, the Velvetiser™.
A cacao pod takes years to grow – it can’t be rushed if it’s going to be just right for our products. The same can be said for Hotel Chocolat, which originally started as a mint production company before we realised it was luxury chocolate that we were really passionate about.
Now, we’re market leaders in the industry. What began as an online-only business grew to over 140 stores across the UK, and we’re still growing… Today, we’re multi-category, multi-channel, and multi-territory, and our customers, colleagues, cacao farmers and suppliers all benefit from the success we make together.
To learn more about us and read about our People Pledge – our commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion – click here: hotelchocolat.com/uk/engaged-ethics/our-people.html