the ideal candidate: 

• A passion for Asian food and an obsessed foodie
• Experience working in a professional kitchen, restaurant or development kitchen
• Be able to work in a small team and individually
• Highly organised and self-motivated individual 

about us:  

itsu is the healthy eating, Asian inspired quick service retail & grocery brand with over 70 stores in the UK and a leading grocery business across Europe and beyond. Renowned for its best-in-class food made fresh in every shop every day, itsu has huge global ambitions with a commitment to continue to open many more stores and intensify the growth of its already thriving grocery arm. With its best-is-class healthy food, latest technology, innovation, and talented workforce, itsu is the future of fast food. 

itsu [grocery], which this role falls under, takes the itsu brand into supermarkets, health food stores, online, wholesale and internationally with products such as crispy seaweed thins, frozen gyoza & bao, brilliant’broth, rice’noodles & miso’easy to name a few…

D&I statement:  

itsu [grocery] is committed to building a diverse, equitable and inclusive organisation. We encourage applicants from a wide range of backgrounds to apply for all of our opportunities. 

When applying for a role with us, please remove your: full name, name of University/School, address, email address and any photos of you on your CV and covering letter. non-anonymised CVs may not be reviewed.  

Scope of the role: 

• Responsible for recipe development and supporting the senior NPD Manager on delivering products from ideation to sign off at Gate 2.
• Day to day management of the kitchen and ingredient store.
• Responsible for cooking up the product range and samples as per requests

Product innovation 

• Makes up recipes to meet the brief from the Senior NPD Manager and pro-actively considers how to approach, providing alternative ideas that are commercially viable and scalable. 
• Accurately documents kitchen recipes, methods and briefs out to suppliers.
• Presents and leads discussion of kitchen development within the NPD meeting with the support of the Senior NPD Manager or Product Developer.
• Pro-actively arranges tasting of samples and works with the Senior NPD Manger/Product Developer and suppliers to review sample submissions and provides feedback. 
• Keeps up to date with food trends related to the category and new products that emerge within retail and restaurants, creates trend reports and organises and documents regular competitor benchmarking sessions and maintains category CRIBs.
• Identifies key quality control points prior to gate 2 – creates cooking/preparation instructions that deliver the product at optimum quality and locks down product attributes at gate 2, supports with the gate 2 paperwork and is responsible for creating the product QAS.

Kitchen management  

• Maintains a tidy, organised and clean kitchen.
• Ensures all ingredients required to produce kitchen samples for live NPD projects are maintained in stock.
• Supports with the general NPD shopping list, keeping the rest of the team pro-actively updated on ability to source required ingredients / samples. 
• Cooks up products and dishes as per requests for business meetings. Organises and supports products for external customer meetings.

what we offer: 

• Competitive salary
• Competitive bonus scheme
• 25 days holiday + bank holidays (two bank holidays are interchangeable for other religious holidays)
• Health insurance
• Company pension scheme
• 50% employee discount in itsu shops
• Free itsu lunch 
• Discounts at major retailers
• A sizeable training budget to support your ongoing development

itsu