Director of Culinary Operations & Compliance

POSITION SUMMARY

The Director of Culinary Operations & Compliance provides hands-on oversight of the organization’s Valdosta and Thomasville commercial kitchens, ensuring safe, efficient, compliant, and professional food-service operations.

Commercial Kitchen Operations

• Direct daily operations and readiness of both commercial kitchens; coordinate production schedules, supplies, food, storage, equipment, and staffing with the Kitchen Production Manager and program teams.

• Monitor workflow, resolve operational barriers, and provide hands-on support during shortages, events, emergencies, disasters, and high-volume production.

Food Safety and Regulatory Compliance

• Ensure food is safely received, stored, rotated, prepared, held, transported, and documented in accordance with law, policy, and established procedures.

• Maintain temperature logs, sanitation records, cleaning schedules, inspection documentation, and corrective-action records; promptly escalate significant concerns.

• Keep refrigeration, freezer, dry-storage, preparation, production, and sanitation areas inspection-ready and support audits, health inspections, and regulatory reviews.

Child Nutrition Program Compliance

• Maintain current working knowledge of applicable federal and state Child Nutrition Program rules, meal requirements, documentation, storage, production, and service standards.

• Partner with program staff to ensure purchasing, receiving, preparation, packaging, distribution, inventory records, and production information support compliance.

• Prepare operations for monitoring visits and audits, complete required training, and promptly correct deficiencies.

Inventory and Supply Management

• Manage food, supplies, disposables, chemicals, and operational inventory through the designated system, including receiving, issuing, transfers, counts, reconciliation, and documentation.

Equipment and Maintenance

• Keep commercial kitchen equipment safe, clean, operational, and properly maintained through inspections, preventive maintenance, and accurate service records.

Staffing and Labor Management

• Supervise, schedule, train, coach, and evaluate culinary and kitchen support staff based on production, catering, event, and organizational needs.

Meeting Room and Catering Coordination

• Coordinate timely setup, food service, audiovisual needs, supplies, signage, breakdown, cleaning, and reset of meeting and catering spaces.

Facility Cleanliness and Readiness

• Keep kitchens, storage, meeting areas, catering, and related areas clean, organized, pest-controlled, and inspection-ready through monitored cleaning and sanitation schedules.

Disaster and Emergency Preparedness

• Maintain kitchen, food, equipment, staffing, and production readiness for emergency and disaster feeding.

​MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• Associate or bachelor’s degree in culinary, food service, hospitality, business, nutrition, operations, or a related field preferred; substantial relevant experience may substitute.