Culinary Operations Manager

Kinder's • Walnut Creek, CA

1d • $113,000 - $133,000

About The Position

Kinder’s is seeking an experienced Culinary Operations Manager to join our team of passionate innovators that is working hard to bring the future of flavor to consumers everywhere. How You Will Have an Impact at Kinder’s: The Culinary Operations Manager will report to the Head of Culinary and will be a critical leader in strengthening the collaboration, efficiency, and executional excellence of our culinary development engine. This is a high-impact role responsible for connecting our culinary team to sourcing, R&D, innovation, marketing, field teams, and customer and consumer engagement initiatives. You will be the operational backbone of the culinary team: ensuring ingredient inventories are managed with precision, coordinating crossfunctional requests, supporting innovation cycles, facilitating the scale-up of new flavors and formulas, and building processes that allow our chefs and product developers to do their best work—fast, clearly, and with strong alignment across the business.

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience in culinary operations, restaurant management, food product development, food manufacturing, or related areas.
• Strong project-management skills with proven ability to manage numerous tasks simultaneously in a fast-paced environment.
• Experience coordinating cross-functional teams and translating between technical, culinary, and business stakeholders.
• Familiarity with ingredient sourcing, inventory management, and vendor coordination.
• Growth mindset with an excitement to learn (and teach).
• Passionate people-lover excited by the opportunity to build strong relationships with teammates and consumers.
• Low ego with a strong sense of humility.
• Thrive in a dynamic, lean, and agile environment.
• Collaborative mindset with an ability to find creative solutions.
• Self-starter who takes initiative and is willing to speak their mind.
• Excited to be part of a fast-moving team with the ability to be a leader and a follower where required.
• Enjoy making decisions and finding ways to say ‘yes’ as often as possible to impactful and important priorities.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in CPG culinary development, R&D, or commercialization is highly desirable.
• Experience with product development tools, project management platforms, and documentation systems (Wrike and / or TraceGains experience is a plus).

Responsibilities

• Ingredient Management:
• Manage all ingredient inventories, including receiving, tracking, replenishment, and documentation.
• Partner with culinary team members to identify needs for new ingredients or raw materials.
• Collaborate with Sourcing and R&D/PD on identification, vetting, and onboarding of new raw materials.
• Ensure smooth coordination of ingredient availability for bench-top development, testing, and tastings.
• Partner with technical resources to communicate flavor targets required for new culinary concept development and coordinate feedback loops on flavor samples including clear documentation of sensory notes, gaps, and needed refinements / adjustments.
• Coordinate with Sourcing and R&D/PD on documentation and tracking protocols to support food safety compliance and operational accuracy.
• Procurement & Vendor Management
• Lead procurement of culinary supplies, including utensils, cookware, small appliances, disposable goods, and kitchen tools on an as-needed basis.
• Partner with Culinary leadership to identify and procure food and ingredients for kitchen testing, tastings, and customer events.
• Manage all kitchen-related vendors including cleaning services, equipment maintenance partners, and suppliers of kitchen consumables.
• Maintain relationships with vendors, negotiate pricing, and assess performance to ensure strong service and value.
• Coordinate with Finance to ensure accurate budget tracking and compliance with procurement policies.
• Culinary Resource Coordination:
• Serve as the central point of contact for all cross-functional requests for culinary support.
• Coordinate culinary engagement in customer meetings, field marketing activations, internal events, media opportunities, and product demos.
• Identify potential resourcing issues and coordinate with cross-functional partners to prioritize high-priority business needs while maintaining development workflow stability.
• Communicate expectations, schedules, and deliverables clearly to internal partners.
• Culinary Development Pipeline Management:
• Work with cross-functional partners to identify key innovation meetings and maintain master planning calendar for innovation and culinary.
• Track progress across the full culinary development pipeline, ensuring visibility into timelines, resource needs, risks, and dependencies.
• Assign clear project ownership to relevant culinary team members and maintain accountability for on-time delivery of key milestones.
• Schedule, prepare, and manage product tastings, ensuring samples are presented accurately and documented for decision-making and approvals.
• Keep leadership informed on development status and any risk factors impacting timing or quality.
• R&D / PD Partnership & Coordination:
• Act as a key partner to R&D and product development teams to transfer bench-top culinary formulas into plant environments.
• Ensure all formula documentation, ingredient specifications, ingredient vendor detail, and culinary intent are communicated clearly to R&D / PD teams.
• Support troubleshooting during scale-up by being a clear source of information and follow up.
• Support Best Practices:
• Maintain a highly organized and efficient culinary development environment (kitchen operations, scheduling, documentation, sample storage, equipment needs).
• Partner with Culinary team and leadership to identify and implement improvements in Culinary team processes, tools, and workflow systems.
• Support the development and implementation of operational standards to drive consistency and speed across culinary projects.
• Champion Kinder's values and culinary excellence across the organization.

Benefits

• We offer a range of total rewards that may include paid time off, 401k, bonus / incentive eligibility, equity grants, competitive health benefits, and other family-friendly benefits, including parental leave.
• Kinder’s benefits vary based on eligibility and can be reviewed in more detail during the interview process.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed
• Number of Employees: 51-100 employees