Director of Production Planning & Operations

Job Description

Director of Production Planning & Operations

Location : Chicago (Goose Island)

Reports to : General Manager

Schedule: Full time, salaried, early mornings ·

About us

Gourmet Gorilla prepares fresh meals every day and delivers them to daycares and schools across Chicagoland. From our kitchen and depot on Goose Island, our production and delivery teams make sure thousands of kids get safe, healthy, great tasting meals, on time, every school day. We are a growing, hands on team that values reliability, respect, and continuous improvement.

Gourmet Gorilla is part of Healthy Bites Collective, a national K-12 food service platform uniting four regional leaders: Healthy Lunch Box (Houston), Twelve Oaks Catering (Dallas), Butter Beans Kitchen (New York), and Gourmet Gorilla (Chicago). Together, we bring decades of experience delivering high quality, compliant, student focused meal programs, with local relationships and cross state expertise behind every kitchen.

About the role

You will own how our kitchen plans, buys, and produces. You will turn customer orders, menus, and delivery forecasts into a production plan, buy what that plan needs at the right price, and lead the team that executes it through our Senior Production Manager. This is a builder role: we want someone who treats inefficiency as a problem to be engineered out and will make our operation measurably better, not simply keep it running.

What you will do

Production planning

• Own the master production schedule, translating menu, volume, and delivery forecasts into daily and weekly production, packaging, and labor plans.
• Forecast volume changes and plan labor, equipment, and capacity ahead of them.
• Establish standardized recipes, batch sizes, yields, and production standards, and hold adherence across shifts.
• Work with our nutrition team to keep recipes and recipe SOPs accurate, scalable, and compliant with National School Lunch Program (NSLP) production and record keeping requirements.

Purchasing and food cost

• Own ordering from distributors and specialty vendors based on the production plan and par levels.
• Negotiate pricing, manage approved vendors and product specs, and build strong vendor relationships.
• Oversee inventory, FIFO rotation, inventory turns, and waste tracking, and report food cost accurately each month.

Operations leadership

• Lead, coach, and develop the Senior Production Manager and, through them, the production, packaging, and sanitation teams.
• Drive measurable improvement in labor productivity, yield, food cost, and throughput through process redesign, line balancing, and workflow standardization.
• Put daily management routines in place: shift huddles, tiered accountability, and visual management.
• Track and report KPIs: cost per meal, labor efficiency, yield, food cost, and on time completion.
• Partner with our Food Safety & Facilities Coordinator and food safety consultant so the kitchen stays audit ready and food safety is built into every production step.
• Build bench strength through cross training and documentation.

What you bring

• 5+ years in large scale food production or commissary operations, including at least 2 years managing managers or supervisors.
• A track record of measurably improving labor, yield, food cost, throughput, or on time delivery.
• Strong understanding of production planning, scheduling, and logistics for large batch cooking.
• Experience with purchasing, inventory, cost targets, and KPI dashboards.
• Familiarity with HACCP, USDA, and local health codes, and experience passing regulatory and third party audits.
• Strong leadership, organization, and communication skills.
• Ability to work early morning hours and spend significant time on the production floor, with or without reasonable accommodation.

Nice to have

• School food service or NSLP experience.
• Continuous improvement training (Lean, Six Sigma, or equivalent).
• Bilingual in English and Spanish.
• A passion for child nutrition, health equity, and educational impact.

Don't meet every qualification? We would still love to hear from you. Many great candidates hold back unless they check every box. If you are excited about this role, please apply.

Your first 90 days

You own a master production schedule the team runs from, purchasing is ordered against that plan and par levels, cost per meal, labor, and yield are reported against target each month, and daily shift huddles are in place with the Senior Production Manager.

What we offer

• Pay: $88,000 to $100,000 base salary per year, based on experience, qualifications, and internal equity, plus an annual bonus with a target of 10% and up to 20% of base salary, based on individual performance and company EBITDA goals
• Benefits: health, dental, vision, 401(k) with company match, and life insurance
• Generous paid time off and sick leave
• A mission you can feel good about: feeding kids fresh, healthy meals every school day
• Room to grow with a fast growing company that is building its leadership team
• Gourmet Gorilla is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds and do not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected status. We provide reasonable accommodations in the application and hiring process; just let us know what you need.