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CAVA · 19 hours ago

Senior Manager, Culinary Innovation & Commercialization

DC-Baltimore Area

Full-time

Onsite

Senior Level

$150K/yr - $165K/yr

5+ years exp

CAVA is a company dedicated to making healthy eating easy and enjoyable, guided by Mediterranean traditions. The Senior Manager, Culinary Innovation & Commercialization will drive culinary development and oversee the execution of culinary projects to enhance guest experiences and support business growth.

Food and BeverageFood ProcessingHospitalityRestaurants

No H1B

Responsibilities

Support consumer and supplier testing, internal cuttings as well as operation and market testing

Track and measure testing effectiveness, focusing on team member impact and ease of recipe execution

Partner with operations to support training content and delivery for new seasonal rollouts

Drive commercial development and refinement after concepting/ bench innovation through scale up and launch including, but not limited to, product matching, ingredient testing, hold, yield, and portioning analysis

Navigate creative culinary innovation with technical R&D, food science to support cross-functional collaboration across Operations, Finance, FSQA and Supply Chain

Support product scale-up in test kitchens, commissaries, or co-manufacturing environments, including coordination of plant trials and evaluations and postproduction adherence audits

Manage creation and maintenance of project development, including standardized recipes, ingredient specifications, nutritional data, allergen declarations, and process SOPs

Drive new and existing supplier discovery to include collaborative R&D efforts, process improvement and the generation of CAVA product specifications

Identify and establish the critical culinary components within the menu that help to maintain the highest food quality standards for CAVA on a continuous basis

Conduct initial COGs and labor analysis to support target performance KPIs to inform project priorities and key areas for improvement and value add engineering

Navigate ambiguity and measure what matters- determine measurable and actionable objectives throughout testing and development process and distill findings and drive solutions

Partner with FP&A on cost parameters to ensure product profitability and performance expectations

Reformulate recipes whenever necessary to allow for greater cost controls, without compromising established food quality standards

Qualification

Culinary developmentProduct commercializationProject managementMicrosoft Office SuiteAdobe Creative SuiteTeam leadershipContinuous improvementCollaborationProblem solving

Required

Strong leadership and team management skills, with the ability to inspire and motivate others

Experience with product scaleups and commercialization

5+ Years working in a similar role with multi-unit restaurant organizations or experience with operations management, supply chain logistics, or manufacturing preferred

Ability to prioritize and manage multiple projects and initiatives simultaneously

Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite, Outlook, SharePoint, and Adobe Creative Suite

Strong leadership skills with a proven ability to develop and implement training programs

Track record of demonstrable skillset in development strategy with operational focus

Qualitative and quantitative approach to problem solving and a drive for continuous process improvement

Relationship-focused -strong team orientation and collaborative style