Lead Line Cooks- Full Time

Lead Prep Cook & Trainer *looking to fill 2 openings* Full time hourly, Non-exempt Position

Schedule 2: Saturday - Tuesday / Friday | 9am - 5:30pm

25-28 per hour, commensurate with experience
100% employer funded health and dental benefits after 90 days
Other benefits include 12 paid holidays, 7 days alternative floating holidays, 12 days PTO, staff lunch, and wellness stipend

Application Deadline
Complete applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis with a final deadline of August 31, 2026
Farming Hope is a 501(c)3 food justice nonprofit. Our mission is to empower folks experiencing major barriers to employment to cook food to sustain themselves and their communities. Fueling our pursuit of lasting social change are our guiding principles: that food is a human right, that everyone deserves an empowering livelihood, and that neither food nor human potential should go to waste.
In service of this mission, we provide a culinary job training program for community members who are overcoming obstacles such as former incarceration or homelessness. Our paid 12 week program helps adults transition to personal well-being and employment while nourishing food insecure neighbors and preventing cosmetically-imperfect food from going to waste.
We are proud to have provided 70,000 paid training hours, served more than 240,000 meals to the community, distributed more than 460,000 pounds of groceries, and recovered more than 58,000 pounds of food over the last two years. We enthusiastically accept our responsibility to make employment decisions without regard to race, religious creed, color, age, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, marital status, medical condition as defined under State law, disability, military service, pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions or any other classification protected by federal, state, and/or local laws and ordinances.
Diversity is more than a commitment at Farming Hope—it is necessary to advance equity and inclusion for the Apprentices in our training program and our diners in the community.
Position Overview The Lead Prep Cook & Trainer is a crucial role responsible for supporting the kitchen team and oversees daily operations; will lead weekend shifts. This role works with Chef Instructors to provide on-the-job training for each Apprentice and execute the daily production schedule. Under the direction of the Culinary Director, this role will support the development of scalable and sustainable culinary operations systems that emphasize employee safety, food safety, effective menu planning and recipe execution.
Provide hands-on training and guidance of Apprentices to ensure task completion and support their culinary skills development.
Serve as a leader during each shift, overseeing and executing weekly meal production of 3500+ meals for delivery - including prepping, cooking, and plating.
Assist and support Chef Instructors with menu development, production planning, and product ordering to ensure smooth kitchen operations.
Support the organization’s food recovery efforts by assisting with incoming donations and contribute to developing creative solutions to utilize recovered products.
Maintain high standards of organization, cleanliness, and team compliance to exceed daily health and safety requirements in the kitchen
Overseeing and supporting daily on-the-job training for Apprentices and team members, organizing and delegating tasks
Assist with production efficiency ensuring training standards are met daily, and that each team member is contributing to an environment of learning and growth in the kitchen
Collaborating with Culinary Director and Chef Instructors on recipe development, meal planning and logistics for all Community Food Program operations
Overseeing daily food preparation, packaging, and labeling, ensuring orders are set up for delivery to the right clients
Support Chef Instructors with food and packaging ordering and inventory
Assist with the execution of our Family Dinners under the direction of the Chef Instructors - prepping, cooking, and serving plated 3 course dinners for 100 individuals weekly - Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays
Support organization’s food recovery efforts by ensuring food recovery intake is manageable and offer creative solutions to utilize incoming product with a goal to become a zero waste kitchen
Maintaining high organization and cleanliness standards throughout the kitchen ensuring health and safety standards are exceeded each day by the team
Collaborate on recipe management system so that all recipes are repeatable and scalable
Serve as on site manager in the absence of Kitchen Leadership
Centering community, food sovereignty, and food justice in all of our work
3+ years experience cooking as Lead Line/Prep Cook

• English fluency required
• Recipe management and general computer literacy required
• Weekend availability required
• Strong desire to train Apprentices on knife skills, kitchen SOPs, following recipes, and large volume meal production
• Ability to multi-task with kitchen production
• Experience in different styles of cooking, making the most of ingredients, and creative with plating multi-course meals
• Commitment to systemic transformation
• Openness to lead production for culinary events over time

Bi-lingual English/Spanish fluency
Experience directly working with folks overcoming major barriers to employment (i.e. homelessness, incarceration, recovery, etc)
Complete applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis with a final deadline of August 31, 2026