Assistant Development Chef in Yorkshire

About McCain. At McCain, we’re feeding the world: from French fries to Smiles, we contribute to the important role food plays in people’s lives. That’s why we’re dedicated to ensuring our core values - Family, Authentic, Trusted, and Quality - shine through every day. As a privately owned family company with over 60 years of experience, a presence in more than 160 countries, and a global team of 22,000 people, our values and culture are at the heart of everything we do. We believe that we can work together, along with our business and community partners, to bring sustainable growth and positive change today, tomorrow, and for generations to come. Join us and see how you can MAKE IT at McCain!

Why join the McCain family. Your Life - we’re here to help you fulfil your potential, flourish, and thrive in work and life. Your Success - work alongside passionate individuals who are committed to supporting your career ambitions, drive, and success. Your Impact - we want you to make a meaningful, lasting impact for you, for your colleagues, and for the business.

About the role. Are you passionate about food, flavour, and culinary innovation? Do you love bringing ideas to life and creating memorable dining experiences that truly resonate with customers? If you’re driven by creativity and thrive in a fast-paced, customer-focused environment, this could be the perfect opportunity for you. We’re looking for an enthusiastic Assistant Development Chef to play a key role in delivering culinary excellence to both external and internal customers. Using your in-depth culinary knowledge and genuine passion for food, you’ll work closely with the Business Development Chef, as well as the Category and Sales teams, to gain a deep understanding of customer needs and market trends. You’ll help translate insights into inspiring, practical, and commercially viable food solutions - showcasing how our product range can be creatively integrated to add real value. You’ll also support the planning, preparation, and delivery of customer-facing presentations, tastings, and events, helping to bring concepts to life and leave a lasting impression. This is a hands-on role where innovation, collaboration, and attention to detail are key - ideal for a chef who’s excited to develop their career beyond the kitchen while staying firmly connected to food. If you’re ready to combine your culinary expertise with creativity, teamwork, and customer insight, we’d love to hear from you.

Leadership Principles. Our principles, each with related practices, guide our actions across the organisation. Together, they address how McCain interacts with our customers and employees, and how we work as individuals and collectively to find success. While each role adheres to the Leadership Principles, individual roles may focus more on a specific principle or principles.

• We are customer obsessed. Customers are our starting point. By understanding their needs and leveraging data and consumer insights, we drive mutual success.
• We think big and plan ahead. Through ambition, curiosity, and smart risks, we can accomplish goals, refine processes, and innovate to scale success.
• We bring out the best in our people. We create safe spaces for our people so that trust and empowerment come naturally. Inclusion is about listening first, showing humility, and working together.
• We act like owners. Together, we clear obstacles and do the work that makes us all successful and proud to be part of McCain.

Accountabilities. Develop a deep understanding of customer operations by conducting unit calls, market reviews, and targeted web-based research. Use these insights to inform product recommendations, serving suggestions, and continuous product improvement opportunities. Build and maintain strong relationships with customer food teams, enabling early visibility of account changes, challenges, and opportunities, and ensuring proactive, solutions-focused support. Deliver engaging product training to the sales team, clearly communicating product features and benefits to strengthen the overall customer proposition. Support onboarding through structured product inductions for new starters across the business. Champion our passion for food internally and externally, acting as a culinary ambassador for the brand. Support the Business Development Chef in the development and delivery of high-impact customer presentations for key accounts, while confidently leading and executing presentations independently for Silver accounts when required. Collaborate as part of a cross-functional team to plan and deliver trade shows, exhibitions, bespoke customer events, and ad hoc internal presentations, ensuring consistent, compelling food-led storytelling. Work closely with Marketing, Innovation, and Insights teams across categories to support the development of new products, helping to shape optimum, sector-specific product propositions grounded in real customer needs. Coordinate benchmarking activity to evaluate the performance of McCain products against key competitors, clearly documenting outcomes and learnings. Ensure results, insights, and recommendations are clearly communicated across relevant teams and actively embedded into customer-facing activity and commercial decision-making.

Qualifications: Proven experience working within a culinary or product development environment, ideally in a customer-facing role where food is at the heart of the conversation. A minimum of 3-5 years’ hands-on culinary experience, demonstrating strong craft skills, technical ability, and confidence working across a variety of food applications. Solid knowledge of the foodservice market, with a clear understanding of customer operations, sector demands, and evolving consumer expectations. A genuine passion for food, paired with a willingness to continuously learn, stay ahead of emerging food trends, and translate inspiration into practical, commercial solutions. Food Safety Level 2 certification (essential), with a strong awareness of food standards, compliance, and best practice. Confident product showcasing and presentation skills, with the ability to bring products to life through engaging demonstrations and tastings. Strong communication skills, capable of clearly conveying ideas, benefits, and recommendations to a range of audiences, from sales teams to customer food specialists. A natural relationship builder, able to establish trust and credibility through collaboration, insight, and shared passion for food. Evidence of successful new product development (NPD) experience, supported by strong commercial awareness and an understanding of how culinary solutions drive business performance. A full, clean driving licence, with the flexibility to travel as required to support customers and business needs.

Location. Being in the office every single day is a thing of the past. Here at McCain, we champion hybrid working. This means we don’t have a set expectation of exactly when you need to be in the office - however we do encourage our full-time, office-based people to connect in person with others for around half of their working time as that’s the best way for us to build and maintain our connections. Our head office (Customer Experience Centre) is on the outskirts of Scarborough - 1.5 hours away from Leeds City Centre, and about an hour from York. We have lots of colleagues who travel to and from our Experience Centre (even if it is just for a good coffee!) and because hybrid really does mean hybrid at McCain, they get the opportunity to collaborate with their colleagues when they’re in the office, and balance that with working from home to ensure they get a good life-work balance.

The benefits of working for McCain. Although we do encourage you to taste the goods you’ll be pleased to know we don’t pay you in ‘chips’. For working hard, you’ll also get a great salary and some pretty good benefits including:

• A generous Car Allowance
• An excellent pension where we will pay double what you do, up to a maximum of 12% of your pay
• Flexible holidays - where you can buy & sell up to 5 days holiday per year
• Optional health cash plan
• Cycle to work scheme
• ‘Chips In’ Volunteering Day Off - to make a positive impact to the competitiveness, resilience, and long-term development of McCain communities across the globe
• And of course, being part of a Global business there are great opportunities to shine/thrive should you wish to relocate in the future.

We have an ambitious 5-year growth plan that presents development & progression opportunities for those who seek it out. The McCain experience (standard across all job postings). We are McCain: this statement is about our power collectively and our importance individually - your impact is a significant part of the business. Our winning culture focuses on authenticity and trust so we can always bring out the best in our people. Here, you have the opportunity to learn, grow, and thrive while being yourself. Join our team to see why we’re better together.

McCain Foods is an equal opportunity employer. As a global family-owned company, we strive to be the employer of choice in the diverse communities around the world in which we live and work. We recognize that inclusion drives our creativity, resilience, and success and makes our business stronger. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, age, veteran status, disability, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law. McCain is an accessible employer. If you require an accommodation throughout the recruitment process (including alternate formats of materials or accessible meeting rooms), please let us know and we will work with you to find appropriate solutions.