Executive Chef, North American Foodservice

What You Will Do

• Apply and demonstrate hands on culinary expertise across the current product portfolio & future innovation in ensuring great tasting food/beverages for our consumers, striking the right balance between hands on product development and directing the efforts of others
• Identify and track influential foodservice and consumer cooking trends
• Provides formal guidance and supervision to Senior Chef
• Reviews assignments, work plans, and experimental results of others prior to delivery to management
• Serve as the culinary voice for NAFS
• Provide strategic leadership for all culinary functions
• Partnership with R&D partners, external chefs (brokers) & foodservice operators to support innovation for the NAFS portfolio (soups, sauces, entrees, sides, beverages- frozen and shelf stable products)
• Drive business strategies and objectives within NAFS Strategic
• Strong understanding of competitive landscape and ability to win new business through duplication projects and menu gap analysis
• Knowledge of restaurant operations and can navigate and simplify complex BOH (back of house) systems by providing solutions for foodservice operations
• Understanding of foodservice operators' headwinds (Cost constraints labor/food) and menu complexity
• Cross-functional collaboration and understanding and willingness to learn more deeply the manufacturing capabilities and constraints to enable successful translation and scale up of Culinary Gold Standards to Culinary Prototypes through fully commercialized products
• Collaboration with internal and external marketing teams
• Develop & mentor direct culinary reports
• Demonstrate culinary thought leadership, business strategy, & creative problem solving

Who You Will Work With

• A highly proficient culinary expertise & collaborative working style
• A sales minded professional
• A proficient decision maker
• A project manager & prioritizer of projects with team
• An influencer / communicator with functional partners and clients in a way that fosters collaboration
• Effective presentations skills & ability to influence
• Mentoring/coaching skills
• Excellent communication skills - verbal & written

What You Bring To The Table (must haves)

• HS diploma or equivalent
• 10+ years of progressive restaurant or food services experience, including 5+ years as an Executive Chef in either space, with proven success leading culinary teams, driving innovative menu development, and managing full P&L performance