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.