Group Health, Safety & Training Manager
The Pantry Group
Location:
Hybrid / Field Based
Regular travel throughout the UK is required.
About The Pantry Group
The Pantry Group is an independently owned food business comprising three specialist brands:
- The Pantry – One of the UK's leading education caterers, serving over 200 schools and feeding tens of thousands of children every day.
- Pleese – An dessert brand with over 2 million social media followers, producing premium desserts for retail, foodservice and direct-to-consumer markets.
- Peckish – A growing hospitality and events catering business delivering exceptional food experiences across corporate, commercial and private sectors.
Our central support teams provide expertise across HR, Finance, Marketing, IT, Food & Nutrition, Business Development and Compliance, allowing each business to focus on delivering exceptional food and service.
As our group continues to grow, we are seeking an experienced Group Health, Safety & Training Manager to ensure the highest standards of compliance, food safety, quality and operational excellence across every part of the business.
Role Purpose
This is a highly visible and hands-on role responsible for protecting our people, customers and businesses through outstanding health & safety management, food safety compliance and operational training.
The successful candidate will spend much of their time travelling between locations, identifying issues, supporting teams, implementing improvements and ensuring every site operates safely and compliantly.
This is not a desk-based compliance role.
We are looking for someone who enjoys being out in the business, coaching teams, solving problems, driving improvements and creating a culture where safety and quality are everyone's responsibility.
Key Responsibilities
Health & Safety Leadership
- Lead Health & Safety across all Pantry Group businesses.
- Develop and implement the Group Health & Safety strategy.
- Ensure full compliance with all UK Health & Safety legislation.
- Review and maintain company Health & Safety policies.
- Carry out regular audits and inspections locations.
- Identify risks before they become incidents.
- Investigate accidents, incidents and near misses.
- Complete root cause analysis.
- Implement corrective and preventative actions.
- Produce detailed investigation reports.
- Ensure all statutory records remain compliant.
- Review risk assessments and safe systems of work.
- Develop new risk assessments where required.
- Support managers during external inspections.
- Monitor accident trends and produce monthly reports.
- Lead Health &Safety Committee meetings.
Food Safety & Compliance
Ensure all businesses operate to the highest food safety standards including:
- Food Safety Act
- HACCP
- Safer Food Better Business
- Food Hygiene Regulations
- Natasha's Law
- Allergen Management
- COSHH
- Environmental Health compliance
Responsibilities include:
- Reviewing HACCP systems.
- Site food safety audits.
- Food hygiene inspections.
- Temperature monitoring systems.
- Cleaning standards.
- Pest control compliance.
- Equipment safety.
- Chemical storage.
- Traceability.
- Supplier compliance.
- Corrective action plans.
Education Catering (The Pantry)
Support over 200 school kitchens by:
- Conducting regular compliance audits.
- Visiting schools to identify operational improvements.
- Supporting mobilisation of new contracts.
- Investigating customer complaints.
- Supporting Environmental Health inspections.
- Supporting Ofsted-related food safety requirements.
- Reviewing kitchen layouts and safe working practices.
- Coaching Chef Managers.
- Supporting Area Managers.
- Ensuring school kitchens consistently meet Pantry standards.
Central Production Kitchen
Take ownership of compliance within our central production kitchen.
Including:
- Maintaining SALSA accreditation.
- Preparing for SALSA audits.
- Completing internal SALSA audits.
- Managing corrective actions.
- Monitoring production records.
- Reviewing traceability.
- Managing supplier documentation.
- Verifying cleaning schedules.
- Managing allergen controls.
- Product recall procedures.
- Calibration schedules.
- Internal quality inspections.
Work closely with production teams to continually improve standards.
Training & Development
Design, develop and deliver engaging training programmes covering:
- Health & Safety
- Food Safety
- Food Hygiene
- Allergen Awareness
- COSHH
- Fire Safety
- Manual Handling
- Accident Reporting
- First Aid Awareness
- Personal Hygiene
- Cleaning Standards
- HACCP
- PPE
- Safe Equipment Use
- Knife Safety
- Working at Height
- Slips, Trips & Falls
- Lone Working
Develop training for:
- New starters
- Managers
- Chef Managers
- Area Managers
- Production staff
- Hospitality teams
- Head Office staff
Maintain all training records.
Monitor training compliance.
Introduce refresher programmes across the Group.
Audit & Continuous Improvement
Carry out scheduled and unannounced audits across all businesses.
Develop audit schedules.
Track compliance scores.
Monitor recurring issues.
Produce action plans.
Verify completion of corrective actions.
Share best practice across the Group.
Support continual improvement initiatives.
Documentation & Compliance
Maintain all compliance documentation including:
- Risk Assessments
- COSHH Assessments
- Fire Risk Assessments
- Training Records
- Accident Records
- Food Safety Documentation
- HACCP Plans
- Policies
- Procedures
- Safe Systems of Work
- Equipment Registers
- Contractor Documentation
Ensure documentation is always audit ready.
Operational Support
Provide practical support across the business by:
- Helping sites recover from poor audit scores.
- Supporting managers with difficult compliance issues.
- Coaching underperforming teams.
- Advising on new equipment purchases.
- Supporting new kitchen openings.
- Supporting contract mobilisations.
- Identifying opportunities to improve efficiency and safety.
Leadership
Build a positive safety culture throughout the business.
Encourage proactive reporting.
Promote continuous learning.
Support managers in becoming confident compliance leaders.
Be recognised as the Group expert in Health, Safety and Food Safety.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Success in this role will be measured through:
- Group compliance scores.
- Health & Safety audit performance.
- Environmental Health outcomes.
- SALSA accreditation maintained.
- Accident frequency reduction.
- Near miss reporting improvements.
- Training completion rates.
- Food safety audit scores.
- Reduction in repeat compliance issues.
- Corrective action completion.
- Customer complaint trends.
- Site visit completion against plan.
- Internal audit performance.
- Legislative compliance.
- Insurance claim reduction.
Person Specification
Essential
- NEBOSH General Certificate (or equivalent)
- SALSA experience
- Level 4 Food Safety qualification (or willingness to obtain)
- HACCP qualification
- Experience managing Health & Safety across multiple sites
- Experience within food manufacturing or catering
- Strong knowledge of UK Health & Safety legislation
- Excellent knowledge of food safety legislation
- Experience conducting audits
- Experience delivering training
- Strong report writing skills
- Full UK driving licence
- Willingness to travel extensively
Desirable
- Experience within education catering
- BRC knowledge
- IOSH Membership
- Environmental Health inspection experience
- Internal Auditor qualification
- Fire Risk Assessment experience
- First Aid Instructor qualification
- Mental Health First Aid qualification
Personal Qualities
We are looking for someone who is:
- Highly organised
- Confident and approachable
- Solutions focused
- Resilient
- Detail orientated
- Professional
- Calm under pressure
- Self-motivated
- Excellent communicator
- Practical and hands-on
- Passionate about developing people
- Able to influence at every level of the organisation
- Comfortable challenging poor practice whilst building positive relationships
Why Join The Pantry Group?
This is an opportunity to shape the safety, compliance and training culture of one of the UK's fastest-growing independent food businesses.
You will have genuine influence across three exciting brands, helping protect our people, improve standards and ensure we continue delivering exceptional food safely, responsibly and with pride.
At The Pantry Group, we believe great food starts with great people—and creating a safe, well-trained and compliant environment is fundamental to our continued success.
Salary
Based on experience.
Experience:
- Multi Site : 1 year (preferred)
Licence/Certification:
- NEBOSH Certificate or equivalent (required)
- Level 4 Food Safety Qualification (required)
- Full UK Driving Licence (required)
- HACCP Qualification (required)
Work Location: Hybrid remote in Uxbridge UB8 2FX
