Community Cook

Salary: £14,531.51 per annum (FTE £21,216)

Hours: 25 hours per week Monday to Friday 9.30am to 2.30pm. Flexible to work some evenings and weekends as required.

Location: Birmingham

Contract type: Permanent & Fixed term until March 2025

Number of vacancies: 1 permanent contract and 1 fixed term contract until March 2025.

The Active Wellbeing Society (TAWS) is a community benefit society and cooperative working to develop healthy, happy communities living active and connected lives. The Food Team is just one team within TAWS.

We work to build trust and safe spaces to connect people to others and place. We work closely with individuals and communities to understand their strengths, challenge barriers and respond to community needs. We co-create a range of interventions, including communal cooking, food provision, warm welcome spaces, sharing initiatives, cooking lifeskills. These are all underpinned with a focus on providing opportunities to become more physically, socially and civically active.

Community Cafés and Share Shacks (Library of Things) embrace a circular economy methodology to reduce waste and promote sustainable and fairer food systems. Our ‘Big Feed’ project brings people together over food, providing a safe, welcoming space at our community cafes. People can enjoy a hearty meal created from surplus food, whilst spending time with others in their community.

Community Food Worker (Cook)

You will be joining a team responsible for running community cafes and catering for community events/projects across the City. The role is responsible for ensuring the efficient running of community cafe sessions, including menu planning and cooking. You will take the lead in creating exciting menu’s from the surplus food we receive, so you often will not know what you have to cook with until that day so being creative and flexible is key!

You will also be required to cook alongside others for community events and community projects, so will need to be able prepare and plan ahead.

1. Work with the Community Cafe Lead to deliver community café sessions, this includes cooking, setting up the cafes and collecting data
2. Work with waste and surplus food to deliver menus as coordinated and agreed with the Community Café Lead or project manager
3. Support and supervise volunteers to support the delivery of the community food through the Big Feed Project
4. Ensure all relevant standards relating to food preparation and delivery are complied with in line with the requirements of the project
5. Prepare and deliver food to the community in outreach settings, ensuring all relevant legislation and food preparation standards are complied with
6. Support community food projects, such as cooking lifeskills
7. Be willing to support with food collections, deliveries and stock rotation
8. Work proactively to ensure that the meals meet the needs required by the community
9. Ensure all mandatory paperwork is completed during your shift
10. Attend team meetings and training
11. Dealing with members of the public

1. Ability to cook for up to 40 people on a regular basis
2. Driving Licence and willingness to learn how to drive a van
3. Basic IT skills, ability to use email and Microsoft word
4. Qualified to at least Level 2 food and hygiene or preparedness to work towards it
5. Passionate about making a difference to people’s wellbeing
6. Partnership working and relationship management skills
7. Knowledge of food allergens and dietary requirements

Desirable skills

1. Experience and understanding of community development principles, ideally through the medium of food
2. Knowledge and ideally experience of working with waste and surplus food providers
3. Ability to be creative, i.e. plan and deliver a menu based on what ingredients are to hand
4. Ability and willingness to get involved with food collections and deliveries

We offer our team members a comprehensive staff benefits offering to include:

• Annual Leave – 25 days FTE (increasing to 29 days with service) plus 5 wellbeing days.
• Nest Pension – 8% employer contribution - 3% employee contribution.
• Heath Cash Plan – giving you discounts on everyday healthcare such as dental, optical, physio, prescriptions & more.
•  Employee Assistance Programme (counselling and DRs on call 24hrs a day).
• Life Assurance – x4 your salary paid to beneficiary.
• Flexible working.
• Fantastic volunteering opportunities within The Active Wellbeing Society every month.

Please submit a Cover Letter and CV addressing the experience you have had relevant to the 'Main Duties' and the 'Knowledge & Skills' sections of the advert, but as a minimum please address how you meet the the following criteria which will be weighted highly in the first sift of shortlisting:

1. Ability to cook creative, healthy and tasty meals
2. Ability to work independently and as part of a team
3. Experience of dealing with members of the public
4. IT literate
5. Driving Licence

Closing date: Sunday 19th May 2024 at midnight

Interview date: Tuesday 28th May 2024

Due to the high numbers of applications we received for our job vacancies, we may close application windows early, so we would encourage you to submit your application ASAP

We will provide all applicants with an outcome on your application, this will usually be within 1 week of the application window closing.

Successful applicants will be required to be DBS checked prior to starting.

Our customers come from all walks of life and so do we, in recruiting for our team we welcome the unique contributions that you can bring. The Active Wellbeing Society is committed to being an equal opportunity employer, we recruit based upon capability and all applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership status, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation. At The Active Wellbeing Society we are searching for people who share the passion for what we do with different backgrounds, perspectives and experiences, collectively making a difference.

If there is anything we can do to assist you in your application or preparations to be interviewed for one of our job vacancies please let us know and we can ensure you have a positive and comfortable experience.

Thank you for your interest in working for The Active Wellbeing Society, we look forward to receiving your application.

If you have any questions once you have read the Job Description or would like an informal chat about us, and/or, the role, please contact: [email protected] and we will be happy to help.