This is a hands-on, nights-based production leadership role. You will run the bakehouse through the night from 10pm to 4am, weekdays and Saturdays, leading the baking team, owning the production plan and making sure every shop, wholesale round and online order is baked, finished and ready to go out the door each morning.
Around the nightly bake, you will own the systems that make production work: rotas, costs, standards and compliance. You will report directly to the owner, who sets the commercial strategy and leads growth, your job is to make the operation deliver it. As the group grows, there is genuine room for the right person to grow with it.
What you'll own
- Production — leading the night bake hands-on; planning and output across retail, wholesale, click & collect and corporate demand; recipe yields, waste and quality; capacity planning and shift redesign as volumes grow; input into equipment and site investment.
- People — leading bakers, retail and dispatch teams through our site leads; building rotas that hit labour cost targets; recruiting, training and succession; running performance reviews against our KPI dashboards.
- Standards & compliance — documented SOPs for every process; HACCP and the food safety management system; allergen controls and labelling; traceability; health & safety; leading us to SALSA accreditation to unlock larger wholesale accounts.
- Commercial controls — supplier management and buying; stock and purchasing controls; owning labour % and cost-of-goods % against agreed targets; a weekly operations report to the owner.
- Growth execution — turning our growth plans into working operations, scaling wholesale delivery rounds, corporate order fulfilment and online ordering and supporting new sites as the group grows.
What we're looking for
- 5+ years managing food production, ideally in bakery — you understand doughs, ovens and night work, not just spreadsheets. This is non-negotiable
- Happy on a permanent night pattern: 10pm–4am, weekdays and Saturdays.
- Experience growing or scaling a food operation: more volume, more sites, more channels or all three.
- A systems builder: you write SOPs, design rotas, set up controls and make standards stick when you're not in the room.
- Confident leading a mixed team of skilled bakers, retail staff and drivers — firm on standards, generous with development.
- Food Safety Level 3 and HACCP Level 3 (or ready to complete them quickly).
- Commercially literate: you can read a P&L and you manage labour and ingredient costs as closely as quality.
- Comfortable with data and modern tools — EPOS, dashboards, digital rotas and ordering systems.
- Full UK driving licence (you'll work across nearby sites).
Bonus points
- You've led a site through SALSA or BRC audits.
- You've run D2C / e-commerce food dispatch or a mail-order operation.
- You've integrated an acquired business or opened new sites.
- You're at home in both craft/artisan and volume production.
- You're comfortable with social media and ideally worked with a brand that has a strong digital presence
Package
- Performance bonus tied to the operational KPIs you control (labour %, cost of goods, waste, audit results, on-time fulfilment).
- A senior role with real autonomy, reporting directly to the owner, in a group that is growing.
- 28 days holiday including bank holidays, pension, and very good bread.
Pay: £30,000.00-£45,000.00 per year
Work Location: In person
