Job Description

Salary up to: Competitive

About the role:

Nando's is on a journey of Changing Lives Together, creating lasting happiness for our people, our customers, and the communities we work in. Originally started in Johannesburg, South Africa, we pride ourselves on creating memorable experiences for everyone involved in Nando's: from our employees, communities, founders, and suppliers, but most importantly, our customers.


The number one reason our customers come to Nando's is to experience our flame grilled PERi-PERi chicken. The food team will support the development, implementation and continual enhancement of our food and menu strategy and our overall food purpose "to create lasting happiness for Nandocas and Customers". It is addictive, we are generous, and our customers trust us so we will ensure that our people have the food knowledge, skills and learning to support the business to consistently deliver our unique product, freshly cooked and served on time.


The Food Development Manager supports the Food Innovation Lead. They are responsible for the execution and delivery of the Nando's UK&I restaurant food strategy.

Key Responsibilities & Expectations:

NPD & EPD

Supporting the Food Innovation Lead to execute and deliver the menu plan as per the Nando's UK&I restaurant food strategy. Supporting the Food Innovation Lead to deliver products to present to Menu Innovation in line with new concept briefs. Responsible for the development and management of any NPD concepts as determined by the Food Innovation Lead or Head of Food. Responsible for factory ingredient/product sign off process with suppliers and own relevant paperwork through sample submission process. Leading the review & sign off process for all sample submissions. Responsible for creation of concept handover documents with all relevant information to set up trial & launch programme for success. Attend weekly QC meetings as a quality guardian to ensure concept & existing product quality is maintained. Responsible for restaurant paperwork development to drive consistent quality standards for all new products - reviewing of nutritional & allergen data where applicable. To supply the Food Innovation Lead with all trial information to feed into costing & GP calculations. Supporting the Food Innovation Lead to develop existing products, ingredients or processes in a continuous improvement programme as determined by Menu Innovation to drive food quality standards Responsible for the food development management aspects of Putney Kitchen including samples, stock rotation and product development procurement

Market Insights

Responsible for stimulating a continuous flow of creative ideas through appropriate research in the food service industry and networks. Leading the planning of regular food safaris to identify new concepts, exploring menu specific categories and competitor research. Leading the engagement with relevant industry organisations to report latest food trend analysis back into the business Attend industry food shows to keep up to date with latest food innovation Support the Commercial and Customer teams with production of menu category reviews To actively demonstrate and encourage behaviours that foster the Nando's values of Pride, Passion, Courage, Integrity & Family

Key Stakeholders:

This role will touch into many different parts of the business, including:

Category Teams - Commercial, Customer, Technical, Food Operations External Suppliers Head of Food

The candidate should possess / be:

3-5 years experience in food innovation role Experience within a food retail, hospitality or a manufacturing environment Passionate about good food and ability to translate this passion into Nando's products. Excellent level of product development process knowledge and experience Excellent level of knowledge and experience in food technical process. Advanced operational knowledge and credibility to make recommendations and influence realistic and commercial solutions, with the ability to build rapport at all levels of the organisation Able to influence at a variety of levels and a confident and passionate presenter capable of engaging different audiences Understands the day-to-day operation of restaurants and how to deliver amazing food alongside operational and commercial challenges Highly analytical with ability to solve problems and make sound judgements taking responsibility for decisions and communicating these in a timely and structured way Excellent organisational skills, able to manage multiple tasks and deliver projects and programmes Confident with the ability to work well under pressure, positive and fun individual with interpersonal sensitivity and warmth Confident and passionate presenter capable of engaging different audiences Team player who works well with operational partners to make recommendations and influence realistic, commercial solutions - differentiating between long and short-term solutions to solve business needs

Our candidate should be looking for:

A culture with strong purpose & values, intent on contributing to / driving positive cultural and societal change Involvement in a variety of projects rather than repetitive work in a business which encourages creativity and evolution rather than a set approach. An environment which is relaxed and informal, whilst highly driven and ambitious A business that seeks to support every employee to be at their best, and encourage individuality

This summarises the key responsibilities of your role but there may be other reasonable requests and additional responsibilities required on an ad-hoc basis


#LI-DNI