Crumbs Bakery + Cafe is an independent artisan bakery with two Hertfordshire cafés, known for naturally fermented sourdough, handcrafted pastries, cakes and great coffee.
We're looking for an experienced, hands-on Head Baker who loves both baking and people: someone who can lead a busy production kitchen, develop a strong team and make sure our counters are full of beautiful, consistent products every day.
THE ROLE
You'll own the day-to-day excellence of the bakery: people, production planning, quality, organisation and execution. You'll work alongside our Head of Product Development & Bakery Innovation, who leads new products, innovation and production improvement.
What you'll be responsible for:
· Leading, supporting and developing the bakery team.
· Running daily production and keeping shifts organised and on time.
· Creating and managing clear weekly production plans for both cafés.
· Maintaining exceptional product quality, consistency and presentation.
· Keeping our counters full, beautiful and exciting.
· Managing stock, ordering and ingredient availability.
· Monitoring production, waste and sell-outs.
· Maintaining excellent food safety, hygiene, HACCP and allergen standards.
· Training and coaching bakers.
· Working with Product Development on launches and improvements.
WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR
You'll have strong professional bakery experience and be confident producing artisan products at commercial volumes.
· Strong artisan bread and sourdough experience.
· Good knowledge of laminated pastry and viennoiserie.
· Experience leading or supervising a bakery production team.
· Strong production planning, organisation and time-management skills.
· High standards, attention to detail and pride in your work.
· Confidence training and developing other bakers.
· A thorough understanding of food hygiene and allergen management.
· A calm, practical and positive approach under pressure.
Most importantly, you'll care about people and products in equal measure. You don't need to be the loudest person in the kitchen but you do need to be someone people trust and respect.
WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE
At 8am the counters look fantastic. Production is on time. Both cafés have what they need. The team knows the plan. Products look and taste consistently excellent. The kitchen is clean and organised, waste is controlled and problems are solved rather than passed on.
WHY JOIN CRUMBS?
· Salary from £34,000
- 40 hours over 5 × 8-hour shifts, no night baking.
· A skilled, supportive team and products made properly from scratch.
· Regular internal and external training.
· Real responsibility, autonomy and the opportunity to mentor others.
· The chance to help shape Crumbs and our next stage of growth.
· Free food and drinks on shift, bread and pastries to take home, staff discount, pension and free parking.
We're independent, ambitious and still small enough that good ideas get heard and good work gets noticed.
SOUNDS LIKE YOU?
You enjoy organising people and production. You notice when a croissant isn't right and when tomorrow's production hasn't been planned. You take pride in a full, gorgeous, colourful counter and in the team that created it.
Please send us your CV and a short cover letter. We read every application personally.
Come and help us build one of Hertfordshire's finest artisan bakeries.
Pay: From £34,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Company pension
- Discounted or free food
- Employee discount
- Free parking
- Sick pay
Work Location: In person
