Full Time / 37 Hours Per Week / Fixed Term for 18 months

Play a key role in delivering a Leicester specific food awards accreditation programme.

Leicester's Food Plan and Whole Systems Approach to Healthy Weight is part of a wide range of projects to increase access to healthy food in the city. The food awards accreditation programme is aimed at supporting, incentivising, and promoting healthier and more sustainable food options across out-of-home food businesses such as cafes, restaurants and takeaways within the city.

Join us and be pivotal to taking forward this award programme using your public health and food business expertise. Leading on the programme from inception, you'll develop insight on feasibility, benefits, challenges and resources required to co-ordinate an initial pilot and subsequent roll-out. You'll have the opportunity to work collaboratively with key stakeholders including a diverse range of food businesses, business owners, chefs, local authorities, health professionals, and customers.

This is a full-time, fixed term post for 18 months, working 37 hours per week. You'll have the flexibility to work from home, but you'll be expected to visit various business throughout the week.

What you'll be doing

Acting as point of contact for food businesses, you'll provide direct practical support and consultancy to chefs and owners, advising on menu improvements, sustainable sourcing etc. You'll facilitate meetings, organise and chair theme groups, and support the development of marketing and promotion to encourages consumer trust and influence demand for healthier and sustainable food. Establishing appropriate governance, stakeholder engagement and communication you'll ensure there is robust management and regular reporting of progress, benefits, risks, issues, and dependencies.

You'll develop and test inclusive criteria to accommodate diverse food businesses with varying resources, as well as produce guiding principles and tools to support positive engagement with food businesses. You'll explore creative and innovative approaches to resolve problems related to the development of the food business accreditation programme.

What you'll need

A skilled project manager, you'll have substantial experience in the food or hospitality sector: working in or extensively with food businesses e.g. as a consultant, supplier, or within a business support role. You'll have practical experience across food, health and sustainability agendas including a proven ability to advise on recipe improvements to provide healthier/more environmentally sustainable outcomes. Using strong communication skills, you'll be able to build trust and collaborate with a diverse range of stakeholders, influence and negotiate agreements, actions, priorities, and desired outcomes, and deal successfully with conflict. You'll be able to confidently market and promote key messages on food, health and sustainability through engaging presentations and conduct workshops, interviews and feedback sessions. Diplomatic, with knowledge of food businesses, you'll be proactive and pragmatic within this complex environment.

What we can offer you

As well as the satisfaction of helping to improve thousands of lives across Leicester, you can look forward to a work environment that encourages a healthy work/life balance. You'll enjoy generous annual leave, membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme and the option of flexible working. We'll also give you the chance to develop your skills and expertise with a variety of training and development opportunities. In addition, you can choose from several flexible benefits, including discounts on city buses and trains. For an illustrative value of your benefits package, take a look at our benefits calculator.

Join us

We're committed to recruiting a diverse and highly-talented workforce as we continue to build a council that is fitting and representative of our great city. That's why we've designed our recruitment process to put you at your ease, make you feel welcome and bring the best out of you. We'll do all we can to make our recruitment process as fair as possible. To help you with your application, take a look at the 'our approach to recruitment' page.

For a chat about this post, please feel free to contact Sue Holden via email to susan.holden@leicester.gov.uk

Interviews / Assessments will take place on the 19th of February

Leicester City Council delivers public services including education, social services, planning, waste management, libraries and health across the city of Leicester, England.