Director of Culinary Operations & Compliance

Second Harvest of South Georga•Valdosta, GA

2d•Onsite

About The Position

The Director of Culinary Operations & Compliance provides hands-on oversight of the organization’s Valdosta and Thomasville commercial kitchens, ensuring safe, efficient, compliant, and professional food-service operations.

Requirements

Associate or bachelor’s degree in culinary, food service, hospitality, business, nutrition, operations, or a related field preferred; substantial relevant experience may substitute.

Responsibilities

Direct daily operations and readiness of both commercial kitchens; coordinate production schedules, supplies, food, storage, equipment, and staffing with the Kitchen Production Manager and program teams.
Monitor workflow, resolve operational barriers, and provide hands-on support during shortages, events, emergencies, disasters, and high-volume production.
Ensure food is safely received, stored, rotated, prepared, held, transported, and documented in accordance with law, policy, and established procedures.
Maintain temperature logs, sanitation records, cleaning schedules, inspection documentation, and corrective-action records; promptly escalate significant concerns.
Keep refrigeration, freezer, dry-storage, preparation, production, and sanitation areas inspection-ready and support audits, health inspections, and regulatory reviews.
Maintain current working knowledge of applicable federal and state Child Nutrition Program rules, meal requirements, documentation, storage, production, and service standards.
Partner with program staff to ensure purchasing, receiving, preparation, packaging, distribution, inventory records, and production information support compliance.
Prepare operations for monitoring visits and audits, complete required training, and promptly correct deficiencies.
Manage food, supplies, disposables, chemicals, and operational inventory through the designated system, including receiving, issuing, transfers, counts, reconciliation, and documentation.
Keep commercial kitchen equipment safe, clean, operational, and properly maintained through inspections, preventive maintenance, and accurate service records.
Supervise, schedule, train, coach, and evaluate culinary and kitchen support staff based on production, catering, event, and organizational needs.
Coordinate timely setup, food service, audiovisual needs, supplies, signage, breakdown, cleaning, and reset of meeting and catering spaces.
Keep kitchens, storage, meeting areas, catering, and related areas clean, organized, pest-controlled, and inspection-ready through monitored cleaning and sanitation schedules.
Maintain kitchen, food, equipment, staffing, and production readiness for emergency and disaster feeding.