Food & Community Officer in Plymouth

About FareShare South West

FareShare South West (FSSW) joins the dots between food waste and hunger, empowering communities to turn an environmental problem into lasting social good. We rescue tonnes of quality surplus food from the industry and share it with charities and schools to bring health, dignity, and routes out of poverty for people across the south west. Our supportive volunteering and employability programmes offer local people the opportunity to thrive. By joining us, you’ll be part of an inclusive, friendly team in a small but fast‑growing charity that helps fight the injustice of who gets to afford a healthy diet. FareShare South West is an independent local charity, working in partnership with FareShare UK. By being part of the national FareShare network, we can help rescue more food. By being small and independent, we can remain close to our local partners and people and continuously adapt to meet the needs of local communities.

The member charities we share food with transform lives, using food to connect people with other support and routes out of poverty, including children and families, people on low incomes, homeless people, refugees, domestic abuse survivors, people in recovery, older people, and many others.

Purpose of the post:

This exciting role links our 350+ community organisations that receive food from us — known as our Community Food Members (CFMs) — with our thriving and fast‑paced food operation. As the Food & Membership Operations Coordinator, you will work across the charity with the Food, Membership and Warehouse Teams, as well as our large and diverse volunteer community, to ensure CFM organisations receive a smooth, reliable and high‑quality service each week. The purpose of this role is to strengthen the connection between food supply, warehouse capacity and member demand. Acting as a key cross‑functional coordinator, you will help ensure that surplus food flows efficiently into the organisation and out to the communities who need it. You will support both food‑sourcing and membership functions, helping resolve issues quickly, improving communication, maintaining accurate data, and ensuring operational plans are aligned across teams. Reporting to the Food Manager, with a dotted line to the Membership Manager, this role is central to improving collaboration across the organisation and ensuring FareShare South West delivers a safe, efficient and impactful service to frontline community organisations across the region.

• Cross-Functional Coordination
  • Support daily and weekly communication between Food, Membership and Operations regarding supply and membership demand.
  • Maintain awareness of the food pipeline, providing timely updates on incoming supply, changes, restraints, gluts or shortages.
  • Assist the Food Manager and Membership Managers with aligning food allocation planning to member needs, operational realities and transport schedules.
  • Help coordinate solutions to operational challenges (e.g., quality issues, storage constraints, cancellations, short‑dated stock).
• Food Sourcing Support
  • Support the Food Manager with local food sourcing activity, particularly in administration, supplier updates and basic relationship maintenance.
  • Be a point of contact for day‑to‑day supplier communication, ensuring timely responses and accurate information flow.
  • Help maintain accurate sourcing records and documentation, including volumes, quality notes and engagement history.
  • Support awareness‑raising activities about FSSW’s surplus redistribution capability (e.g., events, promotional updates).
  • Assist with capturing local supply opportunities and best practice shared through the FareShare Network and escalating them to the Food Manager.
  • Help coordinate truck logistics schedules in partnership with Operations ensuring incoming food is aligned with capacity.
  • Assist with food safety and compliance tasks related to local sourcing (e.g., documentation updates, supplier follow‑up, recall administration) under direction from the Food Manager.
• Member Support & Service Delivery
  • Support member onboarding, offboarding, account updates, queries, complaints and general membership administration.
  • Lead on resolving daily member‑facing issues, including food quality concerns and product recalls, escalating where appropriate.
  • Support food allocation writing, ensuring allocations reflect supply, need and warehouse capacity.
  • Maintain accurate and up‑to‑date member information, including delivery instructions, profiles and seasonal variations.
  • Support membership‑related campaigns, events and targeted projects (e.g., HAF, bolt‑on models, piloted services).
  • Communicate supply changes, special offers and gluts/shortages clearly to members in coordination with relevant teams.
• Data, CRM & Reporting
  • Maintain accurate member records in Salesforce and ensure data integrity across systems.
  • Support reporting for funders, SLT and internal operational updates, including supply, allocations, member engagement and service metrics.
  • Track and summarise recurring issues (e.g., cancellations, quality problems, demand spikes) to support decision‑making.
  • Contribute to KPI monitoring across both Membership and Food functions.
• Compliance, Food Safety & Member Standards
  • Operate in accordance with the FareShare Food Safety Manual and maintain required training.
  • Support documentation for community food member (CFM) compliance, including kitchen checks, food safety standards and follow‑up actions.
  • Conduct in‑person compliance visits with member organisations as required.
  • Provide administrative support for product recalls, safety notices and compliance‑related communication.

Person Specification

Essential Criteria

• Experience or knowledge working in an operational, coordination or customer/member support role.
• Strong organisational and problem‑solving skills, with the ability to prioritise effectively in a fast‑paced environment.
• Confidence working with data and digital systems.
• Excellent communication and relationship‑building skills, able to coordinate across teams and externally.

Desirable

• Experience in food sourcing, logistics, warehousing or surplus food redistribution, or an understanding of how food supply chains operate.
• Knowledge of food safety, warehouse processes or compliance requirements, or a willingness to develop this expertise.
• Experience using Salesforce, or similar CRM systems, with confidence managing data integrity and reporting.
• Experience working in a charity, community food environment or membership‑based service.
• Ability to build strong working relationships across internal teams and with external partners, suppliers or community groups.
• Comfort representing an organisation externally.
• Experience supporting projects or campaigns, including administration, coordination and communication tasks.
• Attention to detail in compliance‑related work.

This role requires a DBS check. Applicants will be asked to disclose relevant unspent convictions at a later stage of the recruitment process. We welcome applications from people with convictions. We believe in second chances and will only ask about criminal records for roles that are exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and require a DBS check. If you are asked to disclose, the information will be handled confidentially and used to assess your suitability for the role.