Company Overview
Gate Gourmet, a gategroup company, is the world’s largest independent provider of catering and provisioning services for the airline industry. With over 95 years of experience, we serve more than 250 carriers across more than 30 countries, delivering delicious, healthy, and affordable meals to millions of travelers worldwide through culinary excellence and rigorous food safety standards.
Job Description Director of Culinary Operations
Annual Hiring Range/Hourly Rate:
Benefits, US
- Paid time off
- 401k, with company match
- Company sponsored life insurance
- Medical, dental, vision plans
- Voluntary short-term/long-term disability insurance
- Voluntary life, accident, and hospital plans
- Employee Assistance Program
- Employee Discounts
- Weekly pay for union employees
- Free hot healthy meals for unit operations roles
Summary
The Director of Culinary Operations is the senior culinary and production leader responsible for overseeing a high-volume, complex airline catering operation functioning as an industrial-scale food manufacturing production department. This role ensures the safe, compliant, efficient, and cost-effective production of high-quality meals across multiple airline customers, while leading teams, enforcing strict process controls, and driving continuous improvement through data, standardization, and advanced production techniques.
The Director of Culinary Operations at the intersection of culinary excellence, industrial engineering, food safety, and operational leadership, ensuring all outputs meet regulatory requirements, airline specifications, and internal "gold standard" quality benchmarks.
Key Responsibilities
1. Safety, Sanitation & Compliance
- Consistently meets or exceeds regulatory and industry standards, including Health Department requirements, USDA and FDA regulations, as well as HACCP, GMP, and stringent airline-specific protocols.
- Culinary Operations partners with the QA Support teams in the design, execution, and continuous improvement of robust sanitation programs, ensuring that cleaning schedules, validation processes, and verification mechanisms are rigorously followed. A strong focus is placed on allergen management and the prevention of cross-contamination, safeguarding both product integrity and consumer well-being.
- Director of Culinary Operations ensures full traceability and control throughout the production lifecycle, embedding food safety and operational discipline into the DNA of the kitchen organization.
2. Production Leadership
- Director of Culinary Operations operates as the senior production leader of a high-volume, industrialized food manufacturing environment.
- They orchestrate complex, multi-line, multi-shift operations, ensuring that production flows seamlessly across kitchens and assembly lines.
- Director of Culinary Operations establishes and reinforces standardized processes, driving consistency and eliminating variability.
- Accountable for optimizing kitchen throughput, maximizing efficiency, and ensuring on-time and in-full delivery to assembly (i.e. Make & Pack) in a fast-paced and demanding operational environment.
3. Production Planning, ERP/MRP & Process Control
- The Director of Culinary Operations owns the end-to-end food production planning process, including the Master Production Schedule (MPS) for the kitchen and detailed production sequencing required to meet dynamic customer demand. Leveraging ERP and MRP systems, they ensure accurate material planning, capacity alignment, and real-time execution tracking.
- This role demands rigorous control over batch sheets and work orders, ensuring data accuracy and operational discipline at every stage.
- The Director of Culinary Operations implements structured process control mechanisms to reduce variability, enhance predictability, and improve overall system performance.
- Close collaboration with planning, procurement, and logistics functions is essential to ensure a synchronized and efficient supply chain, from raw materials to finished product.
4. Quality Management
- Implementation of Total Quality Management (TQM) principles across the entire food production and assembly operation. They establish and enforce "gold standard", recipe accuracy, specifications, and procedures that define excellence in product quality and consistency.
- Director of Culinary Operations ensures that every product meets rigorous standards before reaching the customer. Strong emphasis is placed on portion control and uniformity, critical in a high-volume airline catering context.
- Continuous improvement is a core expectation
5. Business Performance & KPI Management
- The Director of Culinary Operations is fully accountable for operational performance, owning a comprehensive set of KPIs that reflect both efficiency and effectiveness. These include food cost percentage, labor cost and productivity, food waste, yield accuracy, portion consistency, and on-time delivery.
- Director of Culinary Operations identifies trends, gaps, and improvement opportunities, driving both corrective and preventive actions. They play a key role in building a culture where decisions are grounded in data and performance management is embedded at every level of the operation.
- The Director of Culinary Operations ensures strict adherence to FIFO principles, safeguarding product freshness while minimizing waste and obsolescence.
- They actively monitor and manage key cost drivers, including food cost (COGS), waste levels, recipe yield accuracy and inventory variances, taking corrective action where necessary.
6. Team Leadership, Training & Development
- The Director of Culinary Operations fosters a high-performance culture characterized by accountability, discipline, and continuous improvement.
- Responsible for designing and implementing comprehensive training programs that reinforce food safety, process adherence, and operational excellence.
- Director of Culinary Operations invests in long-term capability building, developing future leaders and establishing robust succession pipelines to sustain organizational success.
7. Advanced Food Production Techniques
- The Director of Culinary Operations brings a strong understanding of modern food processing technologies and their application in a large-scale production environment. This includes methods such as sous-vide, hot-fill processing, pasteurization, and other shelf-life extension techniques.
8. Cross-Functional Collaboration
- of Culinary Operations works closely with multiple stakeholders, including Supply Chain Planning, Buyers, Quality Assurance, Process Engineering, Maintenance, and Commercial teams.
- Ensures alignment between production capabilities and customer requirements, navigating operational constraints while maintaining service excellence
- Director of Culinary Operations with corporate functions drive strategic initiatives, innovation, and transformation efforts, contributing to the long-term success and competitiveness of the organization.
Qualifications & Experience
Education
Bachelor's degree in:
- Industrial Engineering
- Process Engineering
- Food Engineering
- Related field (preferred)
- Culinary qualifications are a plus but not mandatory.
Experience
Minimum 10+ years of hands-on leadership experience in:
- Large-scale food manufacturing/production environments (strongly preferred)
- Airline catering or high-volume institutional catering
- Proven experience as Production Manager/Culinary Operations Leader
- Experience implementing Lean food production/manufacturing and Continuous Improvement methodologies
- Demonstrated experience with ERP/MRP systems (MPS, production planning)
Technical & Functional Skills
Deep knowledge of:
- Food safety systems (HACCP, GMP, FDA/USDA compliance)
- Industrial-scale food production processes
- Production planning and scheduling
- Strong understanding of:
- KPIs and operational financial drivers
- Inventory and cost control
- Hands-on capability with batch control, process standardization, and quality systems
Job Dimensions
Geographic Responsibility: Unit
Type of Employment: Full-Time
Travel %: Yes – Up to 10%
Exemption Classification: Exempt
Internal Relationships: all internal departments
External Relationships:airline customers
Work Environment / Requirements of the Job:
- Regularly, stands, bends, lifts, and moves intermittently during shifts of 10+ hours.
- In a normal production kitchen facility, there may be physical discomfort due to temperature and noise.
- Must be able to lift, push, pull and move product, equipment, supplies, etc., in excess of twenty-five (25) pounds.
Demonstrated Values to be Successful in the Position
Employees at gategroup are expected to live our Values of Excellence, Integrity, Passion and Accountability. To demonstrate these Values, we expect to observe the following from everyone:
- We treat each other with respect and we act with integrity
- We communicate and keep each other informed
- We put our heads together to problem solve and deliver excellence as a team
- We have passion for our work, and we pay attention to the little details
- We foster an environment of accountability, take responsibility for our actions and learn from our mistakes
- We do what we say we will do, when we say we are going to do it
- We care about our coworkers, always taking an opportunity to make someone’s day better
The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by the individual(s) assigned to this position. They are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, and skills required. Management reserves the right to modify, add, or remove duties and to assign other duties as necessary. In addition, reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of this position.
gategroup is an equal opportunity employer committed to workforce diversity. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment and will not be discriminated against on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status, disability status or other category under applicable law.
For further information regarding Equal Employment Opportunity, copy and paste the following URL into your web browser: http://www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compliance/posters/pdf/eeopost.pdf
Pay: $150,000.00 - $160,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- Dental insurance
- Health insurance
- Vision insurance
Application Question(s):
- Do you have experience implementing Lean food production/manufacturing and Continuous Improvement methodologies?
- Do you have experience leading large-scale operations with multiple layers of supervision?
- Do you have experience is airline catering or high-volume institutional catering?
Experience:
- Hands-on leadership: 10 years (Required)
Work Location: In person
