Lead Cook

POSITION SUMMARY

The Lead Cook is responsible for assisting in the daily food production at either Kids Café or Texans Café/535 Catering. This position coordinates meal plans, supervises kitchen operations, and ensures compliance with food preparation standards. The Lead Cook organizes kitchen workflows, assists in managing volunteers and student workers, supports delivery drivers, and ensures the accuracy and quality of all meals prepared. This includes monitoring production sheets, verifying proper ingredients and quantities, and upholding food safety standards. This role is required to work evenings, weekends, and holidays as scheduled.

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS

• Reliable, consistent, attendance is a requirement. This position requires punctuality and dependable attendance to meet the needs of the business, including attending and taking part in meetings and presentations.
• Ensures all supplies and/or food items are available for the week’s menu and the daily food production.
• Provides communication to the Kitchen Operations Manager, Sous Chef and Production Lead, and volunteers on all needed food items and non-food supplies needed for meal production.
• Checks daily number counts for all sites, changes daily production sheet metal count if needed.
• Ensures that all allergen and infant meals are produced accurately for the meal counts.
• Aids cooks with preparing the daily meal using the production sheets provided to prepare and use correct portion control.
• Ensures the quality of all food is at the highest quality possible.
• Complies with all state, local, and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) policies, practices and procedures.
• Maintains production during service to ensure that the correct amount of food is produced in a timely manner so that production speed is maintained, and excess waste is prevented, taking into account meal count adjustments and any variance to portion control or accidental loss.
• Aids with cleaning, temperature logs, and HAACP compliance procedures.
• Ensures that all injuries are reported in a timely manner with accurate documentation.
• Maintains the daily, weekly, and monthly cleaning schedule.

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES

This position has no supervisory responsibilities.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Education/Experience:

  • High School Diploma from an accredited school or general education development (GED) certificate
  • 3+ years’ experience working in a full service or institutional food service production environment

• Certificates, Licenses, and Registrations:

  • Must have Food Handlers certificate
  • SERV Safe food handlers preferred or able to obtain within the first 90 days

• Special Knowledge/Skills/Abilities:

  • Ability to work with a diverse population
  • Knowledge of basic cooking skills, basic math skills (add, subtract, multiply, and divide in all units of measure, using whole numbers, common fractions and decimals)
  • Basic MS Office Suite Excel, Word and Outlook
  • Strong customer service skills and willingness to assist others
  • Able to communicate and understand written and verbal instructions
  • Attention to detail
  • Strong problem-solving abilities
  • Able to coordinate well with other departments and personnel
  • Flexibility to work evenings, weekends, and holidays

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS

To be determined based on experience and qualifications.

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS

• Daily analysis and interpretation of data
• Communication and interaction with others
• Regular movement about the office and around the facility
• Use of hands, wrists, and fingers to grip, type, and write
• Lift up to 50 pounds

WORK ENVIRONMENT

• Enclosed office environment
• Occasionally exposed to wet and/or humid conditions, strong food-related smells, and outside weather conditions
• Noisy environment (e.g., horns, fans)

TRAVEL REQUIRED

Up to 10% of the time and on a domestic basis within our 18-county service area.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

This role supports hours of operations at the Houston Food Bank facilities, as necessary, and may require flexibility (e.g., times of disaster, community events, company events).

*Is legally able to work in the United States.