Job Details
Prep Manager — Wholesale Bakery
Out of Thin Air Bread is a growing wholesale bakery in Los Angeles producing thousands of croissants each week, alongside a full range of laminated pastry, savory items, and bakery products for cafés, restaurants, and retail partners.
We are looking for a highly organized, systems-minded Prep Lead to take ownership of the pastry prep operation. This person may begin in a hands-on prep role and grow into a Prep Manager position as they learn our production systems, team, and product standards.
This is not simply a prep position. We are looking for someone who can help build, maintain, and improve the systems that allow a high-volume bakery to run smoothly every day.
What You’ll Own
- Prepare ingredients, fillings, mixes, and components for daily pastry production.
- Maintain prep schedule, pars, labeling, dating, storage, and inventory organization.
- Ensure pastry teams have the correct ingredients and components ready at the right time.
- Help build clear, repeatable prep systems that reduce waste, prevent shortages, and support consistent production.
- Monitor ingredient usage and flag upcoming shortages, production issues, or ordering needs early.
- Assist with inventory counts, ordering, receiving, and vendor communication as the role grows.
- Train and direct prep staff on standards for organization, sanitation, labeling, storage, and recipe execution.
- Maintain a clean, food-safe, efficient prep environment.
- Work closely with pastry leadership and production teams to improve communication and workflow across departments.
What We’re Looking For
- Strong organizational skills and genuine ownership over systems, details, and follow-through.
- Experience in a bakery, commissary kitchen, production kitchen, catering operation, or other high-volume food environment is strongly preferred.
- Comfort working with recipes, batch scaling, prep lists, production schedules, and inventory.
- Ability to anticipate needs instead of waiting to be told what is running low or what needs attention.
- Experience with ordering, receiving, inventory management, or vendor relationships is a major plus.
- A practical problem-solver who can create systems that are simple, clear, and actually work in a busy kitchen.
- Strong communication skills and the ability to lead by example.
- Reliable, punctual, and comfortable in a fast-paced production environment.
- Food safety knowledge and ServSafe certification are a plus.
Growth Opportunity
We are open to candidates at different levels of experience. Someone with strong prep and production-kitchen experience can begin as a Prep Lead and grow into managing the full pastry prep system. For a more experienced candidate with demonstrated leadership, inventory, ordering, and systems-building experience, this role may begin closer to a Prep Manager level.
The right person will become the point person for ensuring our pastry prep department is organized, stocked, accurate, and operating ahead of production needs.
Compensation - will depend on experience, demonstrated leadership ability, and familiarity with high-volume bakery or food-production systems.
Please include your relevant kitchen, bakery, production, inventory, ordering, or team-leadership experience when applying.
Pay: $21.00 - $25.00 per hour
People with a criminal record are encouraged to apply
Work Location: In person
