Senior Culinary Manager

Brakebush • Westfield, WI

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

Summary: The Senior Culinary Manager is responsible for shaping culinary strategy and supporting various business areas by creating, promoting, and developing products and applications for all market segments. This position also involves developing key relationships within our customers’ culinary groups and leveraging the expertise of key supply partner culinary and marketing teams.

Requirements

• Degree in Culinary Arts, Culinology, or related field and 15 years of progressive professional experience in commercial kitchens, food operations, food processing, or industrial food organizations, including at least 2 years of management experience overseeing direct-report team member(s)
• Thorough understanding of back-of-house restaurant operations with extensive experience collaborating with Culinary professionals to provide menu analyses and finished applications
• Strong problem-solving skills on complex projects when dealing with limited or ambiguous details or information
• Ability to appropriately prioritize multiple projects simultaneously, while meeting established deadlines
• Demonstrated ability to communicate, collaborate, and manage internal relationships with all levels of the organization
• Excellent presentation skills and proficiency speaking in front of groups including senior leaders
• Strong organizational skills and communication skills
• Competent in Microsoft Office software

Nice To Haves

• BA or BS in Food Science, Culinology, Culinary Arts, or related area
• In-depth knowledge of methods and equipment used in value-added poultry processing
• Sales experience

Responsibilities

• Lead the Culinary Team : Develop long-term department strategy and goals that align with company initiatives and outline appropriate team resources to ensure success. Lead the team to deliver business-building ideas. Support strategic planning from a culinary perspective. Develop and implement best practices for product, recipe, and content development that drive results. Responsible for ongoing coaching, development, and management of direct reports to ensure staff development and career progression.
• Drive Innovation : Lead innovation efforts tailored to each business segment, communicating with appropriate stakeholders and presenting innovative products and meaningful applications that align with corporate initiatives. Partner with the Marketing team to support innovations with trends data.
• Collaborate with Suppliers : Engage with key suppliers to create new concepts that exceed customer expectations. Leverage supplier resources to speed concept and sample development.
• Provide Best-in-Class Culinary Resources : Help Brakebush become the culinary vendor partner of choice. Collaborate with the Sales and Marketing teams to lead strategic customer initiatives, offering creative culinary solutions that deliver with full portfolio representation. Curate and widely share food and flavor trends. Transform insights into actionable ideas by developing trend-based prototypes for both internal and external teams. Share culinary insights with our Sales team, including best practices for incorporating culinary knowledge, skills and passion into sales presentations. Teach the team to design and build innovative menu strategies using profitable, on-trend concepts.
• Support Business Needs : Ensure the successful support of internal and external customer requests, including sample development, visits, presentations, marketing collateral, and dining needs. Support sales meetings, national trade shows, and local/distributor food shows. Coordinate and create product applications and recipes for photo shoots, newsletters, and publications, and help create content for social media platforms.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager
• Education Level: No Education Listed
• Number of Employees: 1,001-5,000 employees