Baker / Production Assistant
Manna Dew · Battersea, London SW11 £13–£15.50 per hour, depending on experience 7–10 hours per day · flexible days including weekends
Who we are
Manna Dew is a 100% dedicated gluten free bakery in Battersea. We hand-laminate croissants and viennoiserie and ship them across the UK and to customers in the United States.
We are SALSA certified, multi-award winning, and everything is made by hand in small batches by a small team. Nothing containing gluten has ever entered the building.
We started because someone in our family was diagnosed coeliac and there was nothing good to eat. Nine years later people order our pastries from five thousand miles away.
The role
You will be responsible for the bake — proving, egg wash, baking and sorting — and for keeping our stock and packaging in order so that dispatch never stops.
This is a hands-on production role in a small team. You will work closely with our operations manager and directly with the founder.
What you will do
Production
- Prepare egg wash daily
- Manage proving, judging by feel and appearance rather than by clock alone
- Bake to standard — this is a qualitative judgement on colour, shade and structure, not a timer
- Sort finished product and set aside anything outside standard
- Assist the team with wrapping and boxing for dispatch
Stock
- Run FIFO rotation across chilled, ambient and frozen stock
- Date-label all deliveries on arrival, rotate correctly, remove anything out of date
- Record ingredient batch codes for traceability
Packaging
- Monitor packaging stock — boxes, bags, gel packs, liners, tape, labels
- Report anything running low before it becomes a problem
- Restock and organise as needed
Frozen logistics
- Prepare and check frozen stock transfers to our cold storage partner
- Check manifests, confirm receipt, keep records of what is held off-site
Compliance
- Complete daily temperature and cleaning records
- Follow allergen separation procedures without exception
- Keep the workspace clean as you go
What we need from you
Essential
- Previous experience in a professional kitchen or bakery
- Understanding of allergens and why separation matters
- Understanding of FIFO stock rotation and date control
- Able to judge a bake by eye — colour, structure, feel — rather than relying on a timer
- Comfortable with records and paperwork. If it is not written down it did not happen.
- Genuinely flexible on hours and days, including weekends and early starts
- Reliable. A small team means one absence is felt immediately.
Desirable
- Experience with laminated pastry or viennoiserie
- Food safety Level 2 or above
- Experience in a certified facility — SALSA, BRCGS or similar
- Experience with dispatch or e-commerce fulfilment
What we do not need
You do not need gluten free experience. We will teach you that. What we cannot teach quickly is care, reliability and an eye for when something is right.
What we offer
- £13.50–£14.50 per hour depending on experience
- 7–10 hours per day, flexible across the week
- A small team where your work is visible and matters
- Training on hand lamination and gluten free pastry, which almost nobody else in the country does properly
- A product people genuinely care about — we get letters from customers who have not eaten a croissant in fifteen years
The honest version
This is early starts and physical work in a small kitchen. Some days are quiet and some are flat out. We ship internationally, so there are deadlines that cannot move.
But everything here is made by hand, we care a great deal about getting it right, and the person doing this job has a real effect on whether it is right or not.
If you want to be a number in a large operation, this is not it. If you want to learn a craft that very few people can do, it might be.
To apply: email [email protected] with a short note about your experience. No formal CV needed if you would rather just tell us what you have done.
Manna Dew · 169 Battersea High Street, London SW11 3JS
Job Types: Permanent, Full-time
Pay: £13.00-£15.50 per hour
Experience:
- baking: 1 year (preferred)
Work Location: In person
