Senior Food Development Manager

Function: Star Pubs (Retail Team)

Location: Field Based

Salary: £62,500 - £72,500 base depending on experience, plus 15% benefits allowance paid in cash & full benefits listed below.

Contract: Permanent

Closing Date: 7th August 2026. Please note we may close vacancies early when we receive significant numbers of applications.

Did you know that HEINEKEN own over 2,400 pubs in the UK? HEINEKEN has a long-held belief that pubs are an integral part of British culture and that well-invested pubs, run by skilled operators can prosper and thrive. As the nation’s leading pub, cider and beer company and the name behind a host of brilliant brands, we’re looking for equally brilliant people to help us on our journey to building a better future.

At Star Pubs, our Just Add Talent (JAT) estate continues to grow, creating exciting opportunities to shape the future of food in pubs across the UK. Food plays a huge part in helping our operators build thriving businesses, attract new customers and keep communities coming back.

About the role

This is a fantastic opportunity to shape the future of food across one of the UK's fastest-growing managed pub estates. Reporting to the Retail Director, you'll lead the development of our food proposition across the JAT estate, ensuring we've got the right menus, in the right pubs, at the right price and deliver operational efficiencies to ensure that we are optimising profit margins. You'll develop food strategies that increase sales, improve profitability and give our operators the tools they need to deliver a great experience for their customers.

You’ll lead a team consisting of a Food Development Manager and Food Support Executive, working closely with senior leaders across Retail, Operations, Property, Finance, Procurement and Supplier Management. While your main focus will be our JAT estate, you'll also support the wider Star Pubs business. You'll become the go-to expert on food trends, menu innovation, kitchen design and operational best practice, helping shape future investment and long‑term strategy.

So what will you be doing? Here's some of the key accountabilities:

• Create, own and deliver the food strategy across our JAT concepts, ensuring our food offer continues to evolve with consumer trends and delivers profitable growth.
• Act as the subject matter expert on food, providing insight and advice to the Star Pubs Senior Leadership Team on market trends, innovation, pricing, forecasting and food retail performance.
• Lead the development, refresh and optimisation of food menus, ensuring every concept has a commercially successful food offer, right for its customers and easy for operators to deliver consistently.
• Partner with Finance and Commercial teams to shape pricing and promotional activity using consumer insight, market analysis and supplier data.
• Work alongside Regional Operations and Central Operations teams to ensure our food strategy is delivered consistently across the estate.
• Improve food profitability by identifying opportunities across supply chain, menu engineering, stock management, waste reduction and operational delivery.
• Build strong relationships with suppliers and work alongside Supplier Management to deliver value, innovation and high service standards.
• Develop the food capability of Star Pubs colleagues, JAT Operators and lessees through coaching, training and practical support.
• Provide specialist guidance to Property teams on kitchen design, equipment and investment decisions, ensuring kitchens are fit for purpose and deliver long‑term value.
• Support our leased and tenanted pubs by sharing food expertise, practical tools and best practice to help grow sales, improve margins and simplify operations.
• Contribute to food‑focused PR activity and develop forecasting tools that support future investment and commercial decision making.

Who we're looking for

We're looking for someone with significant experience leading food strategy within a multi‑site hospitality or retail environment. You'll combine commercial thinking with hands‑on experience of running successful food operations and have a genuine passion for creating food offers that customers love and operators can deliver consistently. You’ll be confident working with senior stakeholders, using insight to influence decisions and leading projects that make a real commercial difference. You'll also enjoy developing others and helping colleagues build their food knowledge across the business.

You’ll ideally bring experience of menu development, food operations, supplier management and kitchen design, alongside a strong understanding of consumer trends and the commercial drivers behind successful food businesses. Experience in project delivery, change management and working across multiple business functions will help you succeed in this role.

The Good Stuff!

• Discretionary Annual bonus
• Benefits Allowance (15% of base salary)
• Company funded Private Medical Healthcare
• Double matched pension contributions (up to 10%)
• 35 days holiday (with the opportunity to buy/sell)
• A quarterly allowance towards purchasing our delicious ciders and beers!
• Exciting opportunities to develop your career

You’ll also get the opportunity to join our colleague networks, in which people from across the business connect to help champion diversity, equity and inclusion, ensuring we’re continuing to give people a voice.

Who We Are

Star Pubs is part of HEINEKEN UK. The vast majority of our 2,400 pubs are leased out to small businesses and entrepreneurs. Around 160 pubs operate on our Just Add Talent model (a managed operator agreement). Our ambition is to bring out the best in the great British pub – by attracting and retaining the best operators, investing to create great pubs at the heart of their communities and providing licensees with market‑leading insight and support.

If you want to hear more about life at HEINEKEN from our colleagues, head over to LinkedIn and check out the hashtag #LifeatHEINEKENUK. There’s no better place to untap your future. Join us and brew a better career.