Food Development Manager

We have an exciting opportunity for a Food Development Manager to join our Restaurant team in our Central Support Office. This role supports the delivery of the Dobbies restaurant proposition through the development of high-quality, customer-led menus that delight customers and drive commercial performance. You will lead the creation, development, and implementation of seasonal menus, ensuring they are innovative, on-trend, and operationally deliverable.

Working closely with restaurant teams and cross-functional stakeholders, you will ensure consistency across the estate and smooth execution of menu transitions, while creating opportunities to enhance team capability and skill development.

Role Responsibilities

• Lead the development of recipes and preparation methodologies that enhance customer appeal, enable operational excellence across teams, and drive customer advocacy, while ensuring full compliance with food safety standards and company policies.
• Ensure the Dobbies food offer remains on trend, competitive, and commercially relevant to our direct competitors.
• Own and drive the effective use of Zonal (Menu Manager) as the central platform for menu development, ensuring all recipes, specifications, allergen data, pricing, and supplier information are accurate, up to date, and aligned with live menus.
• Maintain strong data governance and integrity, ensuring all menu changes, launches and substitutions are reflected in the system ahead of implementation, while using system insights to support decision-making, compliance, and commercial performance.
• Manage and drive the menu development flight path process, from concept through to launch.
• Under the guidance of Head of Food & Beverage, ensure all menu developments are operationally achievable and scalable.
• Support and coach key team members to enable smooth and effective menu transitions across the estate.
• Collaborate with the Head of Food & Beverage and finance to ensure accurate menu costings and margin models, ensuring strong theoretical GP performance.
• Work with the Regional Restaurant Coaches and food safety team to design and deliver training materials and guides required for successful menu execution.
• Lead the weekly product development meeting to ensure alignment across teams.
• Partner with supply chain to manage product substitution, supplier changes, and cost optimisation, ensuring profitability is protected.
• Provide guidance on small equipment requirements to support operational efficiency and commercial performance.
• Act as a strong coach and mentor, providing clear, constructive, and honest feedback.
• Adapt quickly to change, effectively prioritising workload to meet deadlines and business needs.

Measures of Success

• There is a clear strategy to develop the food and drink menu aligned to the Restaurant proposition.
• Delivery of a structured food development calendar across the business.
• Demonstrable margin improvement opportunities linked to menu development.
• Implementation of tools and processes that ensure consistent food quality and standards across all restaurants.
• Improvement in Restaurant NPS, with positive feedback on menu variety, quality, presentation, and taste.
• Strong internal feedback and engagement on menu innovation and delivery.

Key Attributes

• Credible Food Craft & Product Expert - Strong hands-on capability across culinary and bakery, developing high-quality, scalable, and commercially viable recipes that translate consistently across the estate.
• Commercial & Data-Led - Combines strong financial acumen with data-driven insight to optimise margin, control costs, and inform decision-making.
• Customer & Market Focused - Uses deep customer understanding and market trends to shape relevant, compelling, and competitive menu offers.
• Strategic yet Operationally Grounded - Balances long-term food strategy with practical execution, ensuring all concepts are deliverable, consistent, and efficient in operation.
• Collaborative Leader & Influencer - Builds strong cross-functional relationships, communicates with impact, and coaches teams to deliver results in a fast-paced, changing environment.
• Ability to attract, onboard, and retain high-quality suppliers.

What we offer

• Holiday - enjoy a well-deserved break with 33 annual leave days per year (pro-rata for part time).
• Discount - treat yourself with generous uncapped discount across our stores with 50% off in our Restaurants, 25% off in the Garden Centre and 10% off in our food halls.
• Hybrid working - a combination of office and home working to help balance your work life balance.
• Pension - save for the future with our company contributed enhanced Group Pension Plan.
• Season ticket loans - spread the cost of travel with an interest-free loan.
• Access to Stream - support your financial wellbeing, with ability to access earnings ahead of pay day, save for the future and financial advice.
• Access to Retail Trust - seek confidential support, access to a Virtual GP, free counselling service and discounted retail rewards with our employee wellbeing platform.
• Access to Dobbies Academy - continue your development with our eLearning platform and development programmes.
• Study assistance - invest in your professional development with funded courses and qualifications.
• The little things to keep you going through the day - free tea, coffee, and milk.
• Collaborative office space - with access to our wellbeing room, learning resources and even a book swap.
• Invites to our annual company conference, summer and Christmas social events.

About us

At Dobbies, we're proud to have a history dating back to 1865. We were founded by James Dobbie and are the only garden centre retailer to have stores in every nation across the UK. Our passion and joy for gardens and plants is what makes us special. In our stores, we showcase this through own brand and branded products, concession partners and services. We champion garden living all-year-round. Many of our stores feature a restaurant or coffee shop, where customers can enjoy refreshments or meals in a relaxed and welcoming environment. We offer a calendar of events and experiences that bring people and communities together, and we have a national charity partner that both our colleagues and customers raise money for. We're committed to being a great place to work. We're one team and we encourage our colleagues to be the best version of themselves, every day; to share their wins and celebrate success. Together, we make it work for our customers.