Houston Food Bank

Title: Lead Cook

Zip Code: 77029

Description:

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.

Adhere to PACT values. (Purpose: Using our strengths passionately to contribute to our mission. Accountability: Choosing to rise above one’s circumstances and demonstrating ownership to achieve results. See It. Own It. Solve It. Do It. Courage: Standing up for what’s right and acting. Transparency: Doing things openly and honestly).

Responsibilities:

• 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.

• Assists 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.

• Monitors 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.

• Assists 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.

Requirements:

• 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:

  • To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential function satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability needed. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable qualified individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. (For best performance, the job holder in this position would be expected to show the right knowledge, skills, and abilities in the listed areas.)

• 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

• Travel is required for this position (up to 10% of the time and on a domestic basis within our 18-county service area).

• 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).

Work Environment:

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. While the job is generally performed in an enclosed office environment, the employee is occasionally exposed to wet and/or humid conditions, strong food-related smells, and outside weather conditions. The noise level in the office environment is typically quiet, but the employee will be occasionally exposed to loud noise levels (e.g., horns, fans).

Please send your resume to cilcareers@ciaml.com   to be matched.