Head Chef

Head Chef – Vendor Operations & Culinary Governance (Client Site)

Company Description:HungerBox is India's leading institutional food technology company, managing cafeteria operations for major enterprises across IT parks, corporate campuses, manufacturing facilities, and financial institutions. The company offers a digital platform that enables employees to discover menus, pre-order meals, and make cashless payments, while giving food vendors tools for efficient order, inventory, and settlement management. Enterprise clients and facility teams benefit from real-time visibility, compliance support, and centralized operational control for multiple locations. With a deep focus on the specialized needs of institutional food services, HungerBox has become the workplace dining platform of choice for many of India's top organizations. The team is committed to improving everyday dining experiences through technology-driven, scalable solutions.

Role Description:This is a full-time, on-site role based at a HungerBox-managed client cafeteria in Bengaluru. The Head Chef is the culinary owner of the cafeteria, responsible for managing the Food vendor Partners who operate there rather than running production directly. The role acts as the single point of liaison between the client and the vendor partners, translating client expectations, dietary requirements and enterprise guidelines into clear culinary briefs, and ensuring vendors deliver against them every service.

The Head Chef will curate and periodically refresh menus across all counters, approve vendor recipes and portion standards, and ensure variety, nutrition balance and price-point fit for the client's employee base. The role involves daily on-floor supervision of food quality, taste, temperature, presentation and service readiness, along with regular visits to vendor base kitchens to audit hygiene, food safety, raw material quality, storage, production practices and transport conditions. Audit findings are to be documented, shared with vendors, and tracked to closure.

The Head Chef will also monitor vendor performance using feedback, consumption data and audit scores, coach vendor kitchen teams on SOPs and recipe standardisation, handle food complaints and incidents with root-cause analysis, and represent HungerBox in client reviews on all food-related matters. Supporting new counter launches, theme days, festive menus and food concept innovation is part of the role.

Key ResponsibilitiesCurate, rotate and approve menus across vendor counters in line with client preferences, dietary needs and pricing guidelines.Act as the primary culinary liaison between the client's admin/facility team and vendor partners.Conduct scheduled and surprise audits of vendor base kitchens and on-site counters against FSSAI and HACCP-aligned checklists, and drive corrective action to closure.Carry out daily food tasting, quality checks and service-readiness checks before each meal period.Monitor vendor compliance on licences, staff hygiene, medical fitness, pest control, water testing and food sample retention.Track vendor performance on quality, variety, portioning, wastage, complaints and employee feedback, and lead periodic vendor reviews.Train and guide vendor teams on SOPs, recipe standardisation, portion control and presentation.Manage food complaints and incidents, including root-cause analysis and client communication.Support vendor evaluation, food trials and onboarding of new vendors or counters.Plan and oversee special menus, theme days, festivals and client events.

QualificationsStrong culinary skills with expertise in menu planning, recipe development and large-scale or multi-cuisine food production.Hands-on knowledge of FSSAI requirements, HACCP principles and kitchen hygiene auditing; experience conducting vendor or third-party kitchen audits is a strong advantage.Experience managing or supervising vendor partners, outsourced kitchens or multi-counter food courts.Confident communicator, able to manage client stakeholders and vendor owners with equal ease, and to have firm conversations on non-compliance.Understanding of food costing, portioning and pricing to evaluate vendor menus for value and viability.Comfortable with reports, audit documentation, and using feedback and consumption data to make menu decisions.Prior experience in institutional, corporate cafeteria or high-volume catering environments is highly preferred.Formal culinary education or certification from a recognised hospitality or culinary institute is preferred.Willingness to travel locally to vendor kitchens, with flexibility to cover different meal periods as needed.