Development Chef

The Cuisine Centre is an innovative food service company that’s dedicated to nourishing the nation, one meal at a time. As part of the Compass Group, we pride ourselves on providing sustainable prepared meal solutions to make catering easier and more efficient for our customers in healthcare, senior living, education, and workplaces across the UK.

Role Overview Working together with the NPD Manager and Process Manager, you will bridge the gap between kitchen innovation and scalable factory production. You will take chilled and frozen prepared foods from blue-sky concepts through to successful launches, for a range of sectors, including Healthcare, Education, Defence, as well as for other workplaces. You will be the culinary champion of the business, helping to leading the foodie strategy and elevating our Foodist culture. This role covers a vast range of cuisines and end consumer profiles.

Key Responsibilities • Champion, implement and drive a foodie culture across the entire business, in collaboration with the wider NPD team • Working with the NPD team, translate customer briefs and market insights into high-quality, commercially viable dish concepts, that mean the strict and varied nutritional guidelines for varying sector requirements. • Develop recipes and prepare samples that maintain taste, texture, and visual appeal after processing, freezing, and reheating. • Work collaboratively to transition recipes from the development kitchen to large-scale manufacturing, ensuring factory capability, yields, and consistent quality. • Ensure that all dishes meet tight cost parameters, and strict food safety/allergen standards. • Work with Procurement and Technical teams to source raw materials, evaluate new ingredients, and check supplier consistency. • Lead product tastings alongside the wider NPD team during customer sessions and internal stakeholder reviews. • Responsible for maintaining the development kitchen to the highest standards of cleanliness, safety, and operational readiness, and manage the kitchen team as it is implemented and grows.

Essential Skills and Experience • Proven experience as a Development Chef, ideally within the chilled and/or frozen prepared meals food manufacturing sector. • Strong culinary foundation (e.g., professional cookery qualifications or extensive kitchen experience). • Exceptional team player who thrives in highly collaborative, cross-functional environments, with the ability to bridge the gap between chefs, food technologists, and production operatives. • Excellent organisational skills with a proven track record of managing a kitchen space • Understanding of ingredient behaviour, shelf-life factors, and raw material scaling. • Level 3 Food Safety and Hygiene certification (or willing to obtain)