Director of Culinary Center Operations (On-Site Plant City)

Job Description

Job Description

Location: Plant City, Florida

Department: Culinary Center

Reports to: Chief Operating Officer

FLSA Status: Exempt

About Fitlife Foods

Fitlife Foods is the largest omnichannel prepared-meals company in the Southeastern United States, serving customers through 12 retail stores, home delivery, and corporate partnerships across the region. Our 15,000-sq.-ft. Culinary Center in Plant City, Florida, is the operational heartbeat of the business—producing chef-crafted, nutritionally balanced meals that help people feel better, live better, and perform better.

We are a mission-driven company built around one clear idea: feed people’s journey. As we scale beyond $50M over the next three years, we continue to expand our B2B partnerships and strengthen our position as the Southeast’s most trusted prepared-meals brand. We operate on the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) within a LEAN environment, ensuring tight alignment between Vision, People, and Process.

Your Mission

The Director of Culinary Center Operations is a key member of Fitlife’s Executive Leadership Team. This position leads all production, assembly, QA, procurement, partnership, logistics, and delivery operations within the Culinary Center. They ensure the entire facility operates with excellence, meets USDA compliance requirements, and delivers world-class quality, safety, and efficiency at scale.

This leader translates company goals into operational performance, builds strong, capable teams, and creates systems that elevate quality while reducing complexity and cost. The role requires a balance of strategic operational leadership and hands-on coaching—shaping a culture of ownership, curiosity, continuous improvement, and human connection.

The ideal candidate has deep experience in high-volume food manufacturing or commissary operations, thrives in fast-paced environments, and knows how to scale people, processes, and systems for growth.

Key Responsibilities: Operational Leadership

• Drive day-to-day operations using the EOS framework, ensuring discipline in scorecards, Rocks, L10s, and cascading communication.
• Translate company goals into executable weekly, monthly, and quarterly operating plans.
• Own production scheduling and throughput, ensuring labor, equipment, and capacity align with demand forecasts.
• Partner closely with Culinary Innovation and Supply Chain to convert recipes and menu changes into efficient, scalable production.
• Serve as the central point of accountability for operational performance, food safety, quality, and regulatory compliance.
• Implement and continuously improve SOPs, training materials, and systems that support scale and standardization.

People & Culture

• Lead, coach, and empower leaders at every level—from department heads to line supervisors.
• Build succession plans and structured development pathways to grow internal talent.
• Model Fitlife’s core values—Winning, Curiosity, Ownership, Purpose, and Gratitude.
• Foster a culture of safety, accountability, recognition, and operational excellence.
• Partner with People Operations to optimize staffing, scheduling, communication, and employee engagement.

Process Excellence & Continuous Improvement

• Champion LEAN principles and embed continuous improvement into daily work.
• Implement scalable systems that improve throughput, reduce downtime, reduce waste, and increase accuracy.
• Use data and root-cause problem-solving to identify gaps, eliminate constraints, and improve predictability.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Retail, Home Delivery, Customer Service, and R&D to anticipate volume changes and future capacity needs.
• Strengthen alignment between recipe development, production processes, and costing to minimize variance and accelerate innovation speed-to-market.

Financial & Performance Management

• Partner with Finance and Procurement to own food cost, labor utilization, waste reduction, and yield improvement.
• Maintain visibility into key performance metrics: cost per meal, throughput, yield, waste, labor efficiency, and scrap.
• Turn data into proactive decisions that balance financial discipline with product quality and team morale.
• Support capital planning, equipment justification, and annual budget development for the Culinary Center.

Strategic & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Collaborate with Culinary Innovation on menu rollouts to ensure operational feasibility and launch readiness.
• Partner with IT to enhance system integrations (Parsley, Power BI, production systems).
• Communicate clearly and consistently across all leadership teams, providing insights that inform forecasting, planning, and priority-setting.
• Serve as a member of the Executive Leadership Team, contributing to company-wide strategy, culture-building, and execution of the VTO.

Quality, Safety & Compliance

• Own HACCP, USDA/FSIS, and food safety compliance across all departments within the Culinary Center.
• Ensure sanitation, labeling, traceability, and QA systems meet or exceed all regulatory requirements.
• Lead audit preparation, non-conformance investigation, and corrective action planning with a proactive, preventative mindset.

Qualifications: Education & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in food science, Business, Operations, or related field preferred.
• 10+ years of leadership experience in large-scale food manufacturing, meal production, or commissary operations.
• Proven ability to scale teams and systems through growth and operational transformation.
• Experience in LEAN or EOS environments strongly preferred.

Skills & Competencies

• Deep knowledge of production planning, inventory management, quality systems, and process optimization.
• Strategic operator with the ability to translate vision into day-to-day execution.
• Financially fluent: budgeting, forecasting, costing, labor management, and KPI interpretation.
• Emotionally intelligent leader who builds trust, alignment, and high performance across diverse teams.
• Strong communicator who brings clarity, structure, and calm to fast-paced environments.
• Growth-minded, humble, and team-focused.
• Bilingual English/Spanish preferred.

What Success Looks Like

• A high-functioning Culinary Center that delivers consistent quality and reliability above federal standards.
• Predictable weekly operating performance: on-time production, high accuracy, low waste, and minimal rework.
• Food cost, yield, waste, and labor efficiency metrics align with budget and improve quarter over quarter.
• Clear, proactive communication and alignment between Culinary Operations, Procurement, Retail, and Logistics.
• Scalable systems and processes that support geographic expansion and new product lines.
• Engaged, well-trained team with strong morale, low turnover, and a culture of continuous improvement.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation
• Group health, dental, vision, FSA/HSA, life and disability insurance
• Cell phone allowance
• Flexible work schedules
• Paid time off and holidays
• Continuing education opportunities
• 401(k)

Fitlife’s Commitment to Inclusion

Fitlife Foods is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a diverse team and fostering an inclusive culture where all employees are valued, supported, and empowered to succeed.