Culinary Lead

Role Overview

Totum Market and Cafe is seeking a Culinary Operations Lead to oversee all prepared foods, café production and back of house kitchen systems for our flagship Tampa location.

This role is designed for a chef operator who combines strong culinary instincts with operational discipline across inventory planning, labor management, forecasting and retail food production.

The Culinary Operations Lead will be responsible for building a scalable prepared foods program spanning grab and go, deli, fresh prepared foods, café offerings, smoothies, juices and seasonal menu rotations aligned with a natural grocery environment.

This position works closely with store leadership and the grocery buying team to ensure efficient production, strong margins and high product quality.

Key Responsibilities

• Oversee all back of house production including prep workflows, packaging systems and daily output scheduling across prepared foods stations
• Align prepared foods production with store inventory to reduce shrink and improve margin performance
• Maintain portion control standards, waste reduction systems and recipe costing discipline
• Optimize back kitchen layout and workflow for efficient production in a compact footprint along with labor allocation.

Café Food and Beverage Integration

• Oversee cafe food execution including smoothies, cold pressed juice program, baked goods, light cafe meals and prepared retail snacks
• Train cafe staff on product knowledge and upselling
• Coordinate production timing between kitchen and cafe teams

Inventory Planning and Forecasting

• Manage ordering
• Adjust output dynamically based on demand trends
• Maintain strong inventory accuracy across perishables and production ingredients
• Monitor food cost targets and contribution margins + work with management team

Food Safety and Compliance

Team Leadership and Kitchen Culture

• Recruit and develop the prepared foods and cafe production team
• Build a structured staffing model aligned with production demand
• Implement training systems for consistency across stations
• Foster a collaborative kitchen culture balancing creativity and operational discipline

Menu Development and Innovation

• Lead seasonal menu development across kitchen and cafe platforms
• Monitor Tampa Bay food trends and competitor positioning
• Collaborate with marketing on launches and product storytelling
• Introduce limited time offerings tied to seasonal produce and local vendors

Requirements

Experience

• Four to seven plus years in a culinary leadership role within grocery prepared foods, cafe production or fast casual scratch environments
• Managing ordering 
• Managing labor scheduling and food cost targets
• Producing grab and go retail food programs
• Operating in a grocery environment strongly preferred
• Launching or scaling a prepared foods program highly desirable

Certifications

• ServSafe Manager Certification required
• Florida DBPR Food Manager Certification required
• Wine or beverage certification such as WSET or Cicerone is a plus

Skills

• Strong production planning and kitchen workflow design
• Retail food margin awareness
• Menu costing and portion control discipline
• Comfort forecasting demand and adjusting output
• Cross functional collaboration with store leadership and buyers
• Interest in seasonal sourcing and natural food systems

Compensation

• Base salary expected range $70,000 - $80,000
• Performance bonus tied to food cost control, labor productivity, prepared foods sales growth and shrink reduction. 5-10% + benefits (Health, Dental, Vision, Retirement, PTO and etc)
• Retention bonus available following twelve months of successful program execution
• This role offers the opportunity to design and scale a prepared foods platform that will become a core driver of customer frequency and store identity within Totum Market and Cafe’s flagship location.