About
Methodology is a mission-first clinical nutrition company producing personalized meal programs from our production facility in the East Bay. Every meal is gluten-free, dairy-free, and refined-sugar-free. The protein program runs grass-fed beef, heritage pork, antibiotic-free poultry, high-grade wild seafood, and wild game including elk, venison, and bison. Produce arrives from a partner farm within two days of harvest. Meals ship nationally to busy professionals and families in reusable glass jars and proprietary bowls, and a live packaging recovery program in California retrieves all reusable packaging from the prior week’s delivery.
Close to 11 years in, Methodology holds the registered trademark on “Food is Medicine” and has the clinical research to back it up. A study published with Christopher Gardner at Stanford in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition proved these meals drive measurable changes in biomarkers. That research is not a marketing credential. It is the foundation the entire culinary program is built on, and it is what separates Methodology from every other prepared food company in the country.
The foundation is strong: the science, the customer base, the operational infrastructure. Now the ceiling is being raised and the food program is being elevated another order of magnitude. A precision nutrition engine is rolling out that matches every meal program to each client’s macro- and micro-nutrient biomarkers. The menu, the team, the facility, and the guest experience are all being upgraded simultaneously. The goal is to widen the gap as the most thoughtful meal delivery service in America. That is not a positioning statement. It is the standard every hire, every menu decision, and every production call gets held to. At 1,800 active clients, we are not Factor or Trifecta. We are closer to a Blackberry Farm with 68 rooms, an Aman, or a Michelin-starred restaurant but for healthy meal delivery. 52 box deliveries a year per client. 52 hospitality moments on a kitchen counter. No restaurant on earth gets that kind of access to someone's life. We are one of the rare companies in food positioned to optimize so intimately and often in someone’s kitchen.
This is a down-to-earth, hardworking kitchen with a serious mission. No pretense. The people joining now are part of the team that builds what comes next, alongside founders who have operated at the highest levels of finance, fine dining, and consumer technology, and chose to build this instead.
We are looking for a Chef de Cuisine who is ready to lead a culinary program, and who wants the title to reflect what they have already become.
Who You Would Be Leading With
Michael Phan, Executive Chef
Michael comes from the ownership group of The Slanted Door, the James Beard Award-winning restaurant that redefined modern Vietnamese cuisine in America. Two decades at the highest levels of the restaurant world, and the decision to walk away from it for something harder. He is looking for a co-leader, not a deputy. Someone who challenges the food, raises the standard, and builds something with him that neither could build alone. If you are the kind of cook who makes everyone around them better, that is the dynamic this role is designed around.
Julie Nguyen, Co-Founder & CEO
Julie co-founded Methodology and built the product, brand, and precision nutrition platform from the ground up. A career that ran from J.P. Morgan through Lumos Labs, where Julie served as VP of Marketing, before leaving to solve a problem no existing service was built to address. Today, Methodology’s reach spans some of the most notable households in Silicon Valley and major metropolitan areas across the country, with coverage in Rolling Stone, goop, Forbes, Men’s Health, Well+Good, Epicurious, Fortune, and the Chalkboard. The clinical trial work with Stanford was led under Julie’s direction. On the R&D call every week, and the person who will push the food hardest.
Stephen Liu, Co-Founder & Chief Operating and Culinary Officer
Stephen came up through San Francisco and Napa’s top fine dining kitchens, was a partner at one of America’s most recognized restaurant groups, and simultaneously ran a career as a commodities and equities trader on Wall Street. After that, he built and hospitality consultancy working with acclaimed restaurants across three continents before co-founding Methodology. Stephen oversees all culinary and warehouse operations, finance, sourcing, menu design, packaging, and the full end-to-end product experience. He sets the standard for the culinary program and is a regular presence in the kitchen. The CDC has a dotted-line relationship with him on culinary direction, menu design, and the overall product experience.
The Role
The Chef de Cuisine is the culinary and operational leader of this kitchen. You own the floor, the team, the food cost, the quality standard, and the creative output. You are the bridge between vision and execution, and you are accountable for both.
Titles do not carry much weight at Methodology. Output does. The CDC is being brought in to co-lead the culinary program alongside Michael Phan, not to work beneath him. The goal is a partnership where the sum is greater than the parts: two culinary leaders who push each other and the food further than either could alone. Over time, as the company scales into its next facility and chapter, the CDC takes on increasing ownership of the program. That evolution is the natural result of the work, not a fixed handoff on a timeline.
The kitchen operates with Rational combi-ovens, tilt-skillets, and the full range of high-volume production equipment. Monday through Friday with some weekend production as needed. In the kitchen, not above it.
What You Own
Culinary Direction
- Co-lead the weekly R&D call with the co-founders and culinary team. Not attending to report. There to drive the creative agenda, push dishes forward, and make the call on what goes to production.
- Own recipe development and the translation of concepts into production-ready dishes at large-batch volume. Every dish must hit nutritional targets, margin requirements, and the taste standard of a restaurant worth cooking in.
- Develop recipes within the constraints: no gluten, dairy, refined sugar, or canola oil. The constraint is the design brief. The food still has to be crave-worthy as if the constraints were not there.
- Lead the full translation from concept through production: yield testing, batch sizing, portioning documentation, plating standards, and team training. When a dish is approved, this role makes it real at volume.
- Taste everything. If something is off, find the root cause and fix it. The kitchen does not wait for someone else to act.
Production and Operations
- Own the aircraft controller function of day-to-day culinary production: quality, throughput, productivity, and food cost. All four, all the time.
- Manage the full cook team with clear expectations, real-time coaching, and direct accountability. Build the culture of the kitchen. Soft-pedaling performance problems is not a fit here.
- Enforce portioning protocols to the gram. The nutritional data on a customer’s app has to match what is in their container. Ultimate responsibility lives here.
- Manage scheduling, timekeeping, and support recruiting. Build a bench of people who can work smart, effectively, and efficiently.
- Maintain food safety and sanitation to the highest clinical standard. This kitchen produces meals for health-compromised individuals and GLP-1 patients.
Cost, Systems, and Sourcing
- Analyze and own the culinary operating budget. Control food, labor, and purchasing costs in line with overall operating targets. Menu decisions are business decisions and get treated that way.
- Own food purchasing, inventory management, and production scheduling. Connect the sourcing workflow to kitchen execution with no gaps.
- Equipment ROI is the only ceiling on the equipment budget. Present and defend spending at the management meeting. It is expected and encouraged.
- Build and maintain SOPs, portioning guides, and prep protocols. The kitchen runs on documentation and process, not institutional memory.
- Collaborate with procurement on ingredient quality, sourcing standards, and vendor relationships. A better product surfaces with a spec, not just a recommendation.
The Nutritional Design Brief
Every meal satisfies a scoring engine. The buffer trio rule: fiber ≥5g, protein ≥24g, fat ≥10g gates blood-sugar-friendly classification. Anti-inflammatory ingredient tiering determines program assignment. Three programs: Signature (core), Sustain (GLP-1/metabolic health, light and anti-nausea forward), Peak (performance, minimum 35g carbs, size-tiered). Every dish is assigned to a program at development time. Macro-friendly formulations are active R&D priorities across all categories.
The CDC is expected to understand these constraints deeply and design around them fluently. The best dishes in this kitchen are the ones that make the constraint invisible and the food the star.
The Facility
A 12,000-square-foot production facility in Concord, CA: 4,000 square feet of kitchen and prep space, 8,000 square feet of warehouse and order fulfillment. Methodology has been producing here since the beginning and knows it well. Active investment is ongoing: improved workflow between prep, cook, and portioning stations, added cold storage, and an optimized layout for how the team actually cooks, chills, and packages.
A search for new space is also underway. Over the next few years, the goal is a purpose-built production kitchen double our current size in Northern California, designed from the ground up for component-based cooking, precision portioning, cold chain management, and automation integration.
Non-Negotiable
- 5+ years in professional kitchens with at least 2 years at the CDC, Executive Sous Chef, or Executive Chef level. This is a leadership role, not a development one.
- Proven high-volume production experience: commissary, catering, CPG, or meal production at meaningful scale. Fine dining background required alongside it.
- Deep recipe development experience including allergen-free, specialty diet, and nutritionally constrained programs. If you have not cooked seriously within dietary restrictions, this is not the right fit.
- Strong culinary point of view. A perspective on food, flavor, and technique that you can defend and that makes the people around you better.
- Precision mindset. Ingredients weighed, specs followed, documentation built. Not winged at scale.
- Experience owning food cost, labor cost, and purchasing. The P&L implications of every kitchen decision are understood.
- Proven ability to build and lead teams. Direct reports would rave about working for you.
- Proficient in Google Suite (Docs and Sheets). Experience with payroll and timekeeping systems.
- On-site in Concord, CA.
Strong Signals
- Background in Michelin-starred or James Beard-recognized kitchens. That craft belongs in this building.
- Experience leading a culinary program through a facility transition, equipment upgrade, or significant operational change.
- Clinical nutrition, medically tailored meal, or food-as-medicine production experience.
- Cold-chain production, shelf-life optimization, or CPG food development.
- Comfort with food production technology and openness to AI tools for menu design, costing, and planning.
- ServSafe Manager certification (required within 90 days if not currently held).
- Genuine curiosity about nutrition, health outcomes, and clinical research. No degree required. Deep enough interest to go deep.
First 45 Days
- Own at least one full production run end-to-end within the first week. Learn the operation by running it, not observing it.
- Cook through the entire current menu. Come back with a written assessment: what is working, what is not, and what changes first.
- Meet every member of the culinary team. Understand their strengths, their frustrations, and where the kitchen has room to grow.
- Audit food cost, purchasing workflows, and scheduling. Identify the top three inefficiencies and bring a plan.
First 90 Days
- Own the culinary R&D agenda for at least one full menu cycle. The dishes developed should elevate, not just meet, what the kitchen has been doing.
- Measurably improve production consistency: fewer errors, tighter portioning, cleaner handoffs to fulfillment.
- Development plan in place for every cook on the team with clear milestones.
- Present a facility improvement proposal: workflow changes, equipment recommendations, or layout adjustments based on what you have learned.
- Be the person the founders call when there is a culinary decision to make. That is what the first 90 days are building toward.
Compensation & Benefits
- $90,000 to $125,000, commensurate with experience
- Co-lead the culinary program from day one, with increasing ownership as the company scales. Titles follow results
- Health insurance: Medical, Vision, Dental
- Methodology meals at HQ.
- Direct access to founders who are operational and embedded in the product design.
- Proprietary Methodology Chef and AI tools that eliminate administrative busywork. Focus stays on cooking, leading, and building.
- A documentary currently in production capturing the building of this company. Part of the team means part of the story.
- Founder / operator-run, profitable, no board approval required for product decisions. Fast-moving and built to last.
Pay: $95,000.00 - $115,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- Dental insurance
- Health insurance
- Vision insurance
Work Location: In person
