Food Production Manager in Sheffield

Employer Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Employer type NHS Site Northern General Hospital Town Sheffield Salary £39,959 - £48,117 pa/ pro rata for part time staff Salary period Yearly Closing 28/09/2026 23:59 Interview date 05/10/2026

Food Production Manager

NHS AfC: Band 6

We are committed to helping our staff balance their work and home lives and ensure they feel supported, valued and appreciated so whilst you care for our patients and clients, we'll take care of you. We offer many different ways of helping staff including career development opportunities, flexible working, good annual leave and pension schemes , health and wellbeing packages and financial support systems. Joining the Trust also allows you access to a number of saving options via our salary sacrifice schemes and a wide range of discount opportunities with retailers and service providers.

Job overview

The Central Production Unit (CPU) is the hub of all main meal production across the Trust for 2,500 inpatients and 19,000 staff.

The Food Production Manager is required to lead and manage a number of activities including at the planning stages, recipe formulation, purchase, preparation and cooking, chilling and despatch of meals to a number of locations and to a complex clientele.

To ensure efficient use of available resources including effective management of manpower and commodities to provide a quality food and nutrition service consistently across campuses.

Main duties of the job

1. Responsible for ensuring the planned production and delivery of all meals for the Trust. This includes the provision to all patients and staff across campuses, into the Community and Day Nurseries.

2. Responsible for the planning and organisation of workload on a routine basis to ensure an efficient use of manpower resources within the CPU. This will include short notice adjustments to planned activities to ensure service continuity.

3. Responsible for the recruitment, local induction and training for employees within the CPU.

4. Provide leadership and direction of all staff working within all operational areas of the CPU to ensure a quality service is provided at all times through a highly motivated team. This to include Head Chef, Procurement Officer, supervisory team, chefs, catering assistants stores and portering staff.

5. Liaise with Trust Procurement and directly with suppliers to keep up to date with product availability and prices.

6. Lead on the procurement of food and supplies across the Trustwide Catering Department, providing direction to the department's Procurement Officer. Ensure orders are adjusted in a timely way and according to production needs and within the allocated budget.

7. Work with the Specialist Catering Dietitian, Catering Managers and Head Chef to develop suitable menus, including the main patient menu, therapeutic and specialised diets, retail and events menus.

Working for our organisation

You will be working for an organisation which values and respects all of its staff and the community it serves. The Trust is a leader in the NHS and research sectors and provides excellent benefits for its employees. This includes commitments to professional development but also many policies to support employees in balancing their personal and professional lives.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please view the attached Job Description and Person Specification documents for full details regarding this post.

When completing your application please ensure that you clearly demonstrate how you meet the role criteria.

Please read through carefully and please contact Emma Wilson for any questions.

Person specification

Qualifications

• Advanced technical qualification in cookery skills or demonstratable relevant experience
• Level 4 Food Safety qualification and understanding of current food law or displays ability to gain qualification within 6 months.
• Recognised qualification in junior management or demonstratable relevant experience
• Diet cookery/Nutrition in Health qualification or demonstratable relevant experience and knowledge of special diets
• Qualification in delivering education and/or training sessions or demonstratable relevant experience

Experience

• Significant Catering management experience and working knowledge of large scale catering, preferably in a hospital setting.
• Senior supervision of large numbers of staff
• Managing HR policies including absence management and disciplinary policies
• Understanding of cook chill/cook freeze and conventional production
• Budget management and stock control
• Working within retail and hospitality settings.
• Working knowledge of quality management systems, e.g ISO9001:2015

Skills

• Effective junior management skills. Ability to communicate at all levels and motivate others.
• Confident in undertaking desk based administrative tasks, and IT literacy in Microsoft packages and catering management software e.g. Synbiotix, temperature management systems, quality systems.
• Knowledge and understanding of health and safety/food safety controls in the workplace

Please note that in order to comply with the UK Government's rules on Skilled Worker sponsorship, any applicants who do not meet the eligibility requirements or concessions on salary thresholds under the Skilled Worker visa will not be eligible to receive sponsorship from the Trust. Please keep this in mind when submitting your application. Further details on these concessions, and who qualifies for them, can be found here .

Candidates are advised to read the attached guidance on using AI technology. W hen you complete your application, you are required to declare that the information in your application form is true and complete. The personal statement is exactly that; personal.

When selecting to apply via NHS Jobs, you will be redirected to our preferred recruitment system called Trac. You will be asked to create and submit your application via the Trac recruitment system.

You will not be able to track the progress of your application or receive messages through the NHS Jobs website, and furthermore, as an employer, we will not be able to respond to any e-mails sent to us via the NHS Jobs website. All communications should be sent via your Trac system account.

If you are offered employment at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals your information will be transferred from the Trac recruitment system into the national NHS Electronic Staff Records system. In addition, in submitting an application form, you authorise our Trust to confirm any previous NHS service details via the ESR IAT process should you be appointed.

Please note, all communication regarding your application will be made via email sent via the Trac recruitment system, please ensure you check your junk/spam folders as emails are sometimes filtered there.

The Trust is committed to its obligations in accordance with the Equality Act 2010, and we positively encourage applications from all sections of the community. Should you require any assistance in applying for the position please contact the General or Medical Human Resources Departments on the number identified on the NHS Jobs page for the organisation. Job Share applicants are welcome for all full time posts unless indicated but cannot be guaranteed. In addition for Fixed Term Contracts, internal secondments may be considered, please seek the approval of your current line manager before applying for the position. All employment with the Trust is subject to a number of NHS Employment Checks being met to a satisfactory standard including verification of identity, eligibility to work in the United Kingdom, references and qualifications in addition to professional registration, a disclosure and barring records check and occupational health check if these are deemed to be a requirement for the position to be undertaken.

For more information about our organisation and the opportunities available, please visit our website and follow us on Twitter and Facebook

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