RAFAKidz Nurseries Food & Nutrition Lead

RAFAKidz is on a mission to provide exceptional, affordable childcare tailored to the unique needs of Armed Forces and civilian families. With nurseries located on or near RAF and MOD stations across the UK, we are proud to be fully OFSTED-registered and committed to safeguarding, quality, and excellence. We work closely with children, families, and partner organisations to ensure every child has the opportunity to thrive. Our strong ties to the RAF and the RAF Association help us deliver a curriculum and environment that supports the needs of serving families.

The Food and Nutrition Lead is responsible for the strategic development, implementation and quality assurance of food, nutrition and mealtime provision across all RAFAKidz nurseries. The postholder will ensure that babies and children receive healthy, balanced and nutritious meals, snacks and drinks that support their growth, development, wellbeing and enjoyment of food. The role will provide leadership across all aspects of menu planning, food standards, mealtime practice, dietary safety and compliance, ensuring alignment with Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) nutrition guidance, food safety requirements, allergen legislation and wider public health guidance, while creating a positive food culture that promotes lifelong healthy habits.

Primary responsibilities include:

• Develop, implement and continuously improve the RAFAKidz national food and nutrition strategy.
• Establish a clear and consistent framework for food provision across all nurseries, setting standards for menu design, nutritional quality, mealtime practice, food safety and dietary inclusion.
• Act as RAFAKidz subject matter expert on early years nutrition, public health and dietary needs safeguarding and food legislation, ensuring RAFAKidz remains current, compliant and forward-looking in its practice.
• Ensure food provision across RAFAKidz nurseries complies with the EYFS statutory framework, DfE early years nutrition guidance, Food Standards Agency requirements, food hygiene regulations, allergen legislation and any other relevant standards.
• Develop and maintain a robust quality assurance framework for food and nutrition across the nurseries.
• Undertake regular visits to nurseries to review food quality, kitchen practice, mealtime environments, documentation and compliance with RAFAKidz standards.
• Provide advice on menu implementation, food presentation, portion sizes, dietary adjustments, kitchen routines and food-related problem solving.
• Develop and deliver training to nursery teams, cooks and relevant colleagues on early years nutrition.
• Act as a point of contact for external professionals and agencies where specialist advice, partnership or assurance is required in relation to food and nutrition.

As a professional in the field of food and nutrition, ideally with a background of working within the early years or education sector, you will be an expert in providing leadership to geographically dispersed settings. As a persuasive and influential expert in early years nutrition, you'll have experience of developing strategies, with a strong understanding of compliance requirements. As a newly created role, you will be confident in promoting partnership working and encourage engagement across the sector to support sufficiency, food quality improvement, and positive outcomes for children.

Overall, we need you to be able to demonstrate a high level of proficiency in the following areas:

• Strategic leadership and service development.
• Nutrition, menus and mealtime practice.
• Compliance, quality assurance and audit.
• Operational support to nurseries.
• Training, coaching and professional development.
• Parent, family and stakeholder engagement.
• Procurement, value and sustainability.

The role is based at Atlas House Leicester LE3 1UT with travel to support nursery settings as required.

Closing Date: 8am Monday 7 September.

The RAF Association is a Disability Confident employer. Please let us know if you require any assistance with your application.