Head of Catering Services

At Belong, we believe that food is about much more than nutrition. It is about comfort, dignity, independence, social connection, and creating moments that matter. We are looking for an experienced and values-led Head of Catering Services to provide strategic leadership across all catering and food-related services within our Belong villages. This is a key senior role, responsible for shaping and elevating the full dining experience across our households, Bistros, catering teams, suppliers, and food service standards. You will lead with a clear focus on quality, compliance, customer experience, commercial performance, and continuous improvement, ensuring that every resident, customer, colleague, family member, and visitor receives a warm, consistent, safe, and high-quality food experience. About the role As Head of Catering Services, you will provide professional expertise, operational oversight, and strategic direction across catering services in all Belong villages. You will champion Belong’s approach to homely, person-centred mealtime experiences, while also supporting modern, commercially effective Bistro services that reflect our standards and values. This role will work closely with General Managers, Bistro and Catering Managers, Household teams, Operations, Quality, Clinical colleagues, Procurement, and external suppliers to ensure catering services are safe, well-led, financially sustainable, and consistently high quality. You will also play a key role in developing catering standards, menu planning, modified diet practices, supplier arrangements, audit processes, colleague development, and future catering improvements across the organisation. Salary £72,224 Hybrid work arrangement Responsibilities: - Provide strategic leadership and direction for catering services across Belong villages. - - Lead the development of menus that are nutritious, balanced, appealing, culturally appropriate, and suitable for specialist or modified diets. - - Oversee Bistro operations, ensuring a high-quality customer experience, strong commercial performance, and alignment with Belong’s brand. - - Provide professional guidance to household teams to support safe, homely, person-centred mealtime experiences. - - Lead the design, implementation, and assurance of modified diet practices, including dysphagia management, food safety, and clinical guidance. - - Develop and maintain catering policies, procedures, standards, and audit processes. - - Monitor food quality, customer feedback, satisfaction data, and operational insight to drive improvement. - - Manage catering suppliers and third-party food partnerships, ensuring strong contract management, value for money, and service quality. - - Support catering teams with workforce development, career pathways, mentoring, and capability building. - - Work collaboratively with village leadership teams to align on budgets, staffing, contracts, food quality, and operational standards. - - Lead food safety monitoring across all villages, ensuring compliance with legislation, HACCP, allergen management, and internal standards. - - Identify opportunities to improve food quality, reduce waste, strengthen financial control, and enhance the overall dining experience. - - Contribute expert input into new developments, refurbishments, kitchen design, Bistro layouts, and catering equipment requirements. - We are looking for someone with strong experience leading catering services across a multi-site environment. You may come from health and social care, hospitality, catering, facilities, or another customer-focused operational setting where quality, safety, people leadership, and commercial performance are equally important. You will bring strong professional knowledge of food safety, menu planning, nutrition, modified diets, allergen management, supplier management, and catering operations. Just as importantly, you will be someone who understands the impact that excellent food and hospitality can have on people’s daily lives. You will be confident influencing senior stakeholders, supporting site-based teams, improving standards, and balancing operational detail with strategic leadership. You will need: - Significant experience leading catering services in a multi-site environment, ideally within health or social care. - - Strong knowledge of nutrition, menu planning, modified diets, dysphagia, and dietary requirements for older adults. - - Demonstrable expertise in food safety, allergen management, HACCP, and relevant legislation. - - Proven ability to lead, develop, motivate, and support diverse teams across multiple locations. - - Experience managing third-party catering contracts and supplier relationships. - - Strong financial management skills, including budget setting, cost control, and analysis of food and staffing costs. - - Experience using audits, data, and customer feedback to improve service quality. - - Excellent communication and relationship management skills. - - Strong organisational skills and the ability to manage a broad and varied workload. - - Good IT and systems literacy. - - A Level 5 qualification in Catering Management, or a related field. - - Level 4 Food Safety qualification. - - A full driving licence, as regular travel to Belong villages will be required. - - It would be advantageous for you to also have: - - Knowledge of sustainability practices within catering, including waste reduction and ethical sourcing. - - Experience in service redesign, transformation, or implementing new catering systems. - - Familiarity with person-centred care models and household-style living environments. - - A qualification in nutrition, dietetics, or equivalent experience in clinical nutrition. - - A leadership or management qualification, such as ILM Level 5 or above. - - Private Healthcare Plan - - Pension Plans - - Life Assurance - - Leave Package - - Work From Home - - Training & Development - - Employee Assistance Programme - Counseling - - Childcare Voucher Scheme -