Hospitality and Catering Manager

Overview

Bring your chef skills to a role where you can lead a team and take pride in serving great food every day.

Food is at the core of our business, and our staff restaurant is at the heart of our Trowbridge site, serving around 600 colleagues working across days, evenings, nights and weekends.

Our staff restaurant was refurbished following a significant investment in 2023.

With a second site opening at our factory in 2027, this is an opportunity to help shape the next chapter of catering at apetito.

We’re looking for an experienced and enthusiastic Hospitality and Catering Manager to lead our onsite catering operation across both facilities.

If you have a chef background and experience of managing or supervising a busy catering operation, this is an opportunity to combine your practical food knowledge with broader operational leadership.

You’ll bring the same care to planning and running the operation as you do to the food on the plate.

Taking overall responsibility for our catering services, you’ll combine high standards of food, service and presentation with strong financial management, food safety and compliance.

This is a hands-on leadership role. You’ll lead and develop the catering team, manage the day-to-day operation and evolve our food and hospitality offer to sustain and nourish colleagues across a wide range of shifts.

From hot breakfasts, lunches and evening meals to a salad bar, baked goods and meeting hospitality, there’s variety in what we serve.

Our team combines apetito products with freshly prepared food, alongside vending services, giving you the opportunity to bring your skills to a varied catering offer.

The role offers primarily Monday-to-Friday working while keeping food and hospitality at the centre of what you do. Occasional night and weekend working is required to provide visible leadership and support to the teams operating those shifts.

Who we are

apetito is the UK's leading food supplier to the health and social care sectors, serving more than 1,300 care homes, healthcare and education settings.

Our meals are expertly crafted by chefs and dietitians before being frozen to lock in nutrition, flavour and freshness.

Wiltshire Farm Foods, our sister company, is the UK's largest ready-meal provider, delivering more than 330 delicious frozen meals to customers across the UK.

Responsibilities

Catering Operations

• Lead the catering operation across Kitchen East and Kitchen West, coordinating staffing, food preparation and service to meet customer and business needs.
• Play a key role in preparing for the opening of the new Kitchen West restaurant and establishing an effective catering operation across both facilities.
• Develop menus and the overall food offer, ensuring consistently high standards of quality, presentation, choice and value for money.
• Maintain a strong focus on the customer experience, continually looking for opportunities to improve and develop the service.
• Plan and deliver catering for seasonal, charitable and special events.

Team Leadership

• Lead, motivate and develop the catering team, ensuring effective staffing across the operation.
• Recruit and induct new team members and provide ongoing training, coaching and development.
• Manage attendance, performance, conduct and capability matters in line with company policies.
• Build a positive, collaborative and customer-focused team culture.

Commercial and Stock Management

• Manage catering budgets, costs and income targets, maintaining appropriate financial controls.
• Manage purchasing, supplier relationships, deliveries and stock.
• Minimise food waste through effective stock management, menu planning and portion control.
• Ensure effective cash handling, reconciliation and financial record keeping.

Compliance and Quality

• Maintain high standards of food safety, hygiene and health and safety, ensuring compliance with relevant legislation, company policies and procedures.
• Ensure consistently high standards of cleanliness, food quality and presentation across both facilities.
• Monitor customer feedback and use it to identify and deliver improvements to the catering offer.
• Work closely with the Facilities Manager to ensure catering equipment and facilities are appropriately maintained.

Planning and Continuous Improvement

• Manage rotas, timesheets and the operational records required for the effective running of the service.
• Lead and support projects to continually improve our catering, hospitality and staff restaurant offer.
• Build effective relationships with colleagues and stakeholders across the business, ensuring the service responds to changing operational needs

Qualifications/Personal Qualities

You will be an experienced, hands-on catering manager who enjoys leading a team and takes pride in delivering consistently good food and service.

You will be comfortable managing a busy catering operation, balancing the day-to-day demands of customers, people, food safety and cost control.

Essential Requirements

• Previous experience in a kitchen working as a chef, head chef or similar management role.
• Strong working knowledge of food preparation, food safety, stock control and waste management.
• A genuine passion for delivering good-quality food and excellent customer service.
• Level 2 NVQ in Professional Cookery, or equivalent qualification, or relevant professional experience.
• Food Safety Level 2 or 3 qualification (or willingness to achieve this within six months of appointment.)
• Strong people leadership skills, with experience of motivating, developing and managing a team.
• Good commercial awareness, including experience of managing costs, stock and budgets.
• Well organised, with the ability to plan staffing and workloads across a busy operation.
• Confident communicator, able to build effective working relationships with colleagues and stakeholders at all levels.
• Good attention to detail and a strong approach to food safety, health and safety and compliance.
• Competent IT skills.
• High standards of integrity and a commitment to apetito's values.

Desirable

• Experience within a staff restaurant, workplace catering, contract catering or similar environment.
• Experience of operating across more than one catering outlet or service.
• Experience of managing catering budgets and income.
• Experience of BRCGS standards or working within a food manufacturing environment.

Due to the operating hours of our catering services, you will need to be flexible and willing to work occasional nights and weekends to provide visible support to the teams working those shifts.

Company Benefits

• Competitive salary
• Accredited Living Wage Employer
• 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays
• Option to purchase up to 5 additional days' holiday
• Discretionary annual bonus scheme
• Pension scheme with employer contributions up to 4%
• Life assurance scheme worth at least one year's salary
• Subsidised onsite restaurant
• Free onsite parking
• Christmas turkey or voucher
• Access to the apetito Perks scheme, including retail discounts and salary sacrifice benefits

Our Values

As a family-owned business, we take great pride in being a company that makes a real difference and is dedicated to creating outstanding meals to be proud of.

We develop a range of products designed to enhance health and well-being for all our customers.

We are driven by a passion for service and dedicated to feeding some of the UK’s most vulnerable people.

We proudly support British food and farming, focusing on using the best ethical and sustainable produce in alignment with our goal to reach Net Zero by 2040.

Our ethical standards are recognised by the ETI and we are an accredited Living Wage employer.Learn more about apetito’s commitment to a more sustainable future.

We embrace inclusion, empowering individuals from diverse backgrounds.

Our commitment to making a real difference extends to customers, communities, and staff and we're on a mission to build an inclusive workplace where everyone reaches their full potential.