Sous Chef - Airline Catering Cold Kitchen

About the role

Emirates Flight Catering is looking for a Sous Chef for its high-volume airline catering operation in Dubai. The role oversees daily bulk production in a Cold Kitchen, covering production planning, manpower and shift coordination, batch and yield control and timely dispatch in line with demand and forecasts. It also ensures consistent product quality, HACCP and food safety compliance, and close coordination with the Planning and Dispatch teams.

Key responsibilities

• Supervise and allocate work to subordinates, observe their methods and productivity, assist them and coordinate with senior production staff so they receive the training needed to achieve targets.
• Plan rosters and schedules to ensure timely, efficient production according to specifications, standardized recipes and passenger load requirements, with accurate portioning, presentation and date colour-coding.
• Maintain Gold Standard food safety records with daily monitoring and corrective follow-ups, keeping wastage to a minimum.
• Identify and resolve operational issues quickly, communicating regularly with Senior and Executive Sous Chefs about production status and actions taken.
• Enforce SOPs, approved recipes and methods, and support the development and trial of new recipes and menu items.
• Prepare and update the production plan and production sheets, including separate breakdowns for each airline or catering business.
• Ensure proper stock rotation, on-time deliveries, high-quality service and strict hygiene procedures.
• Control food cost and wastage by monitoring portioning, optimizing raw material use and tracking variances against production plans.
• Comply with the company's Safety and Hygiene policy and procedures.

Required profile

• Hotel Management or Culinary degree.
• At least 5 years of experience in the culinary field.
• Experience in hotel catering in a 5-star facility, with excellent knowledge of cooking and different cuisines.
• Previous experience in high-volume or banqueting kitchens in a large team is preferred.

Required skills

• Feedback and coaching ability, and effective delegation.
• Problem-solving and decision-making under pressure.
• Strong interpersonal, organizational and communication skills, including training others.