Community Chef

Job Posting

Community Chef

(Permanent position, 35 hours/week)

We are currently looking to hire a creative and qualified Community Chef with a passion for food and knowledge sharing to lead the food preparation, transformation and preservation for our community meal program.  

Who are we?

Founded in 1986, The Depot Community Food Centre is a community-based non-profit organization that works collaboratively with its community to address the root causes of hunger and poverty in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (NDG)and the surrounding areas in a manner that ensures dignity, engagement and the development of human potential. We offer many food-based programs to support the food security and healthy eating habits of youth, families and individuals. Our activities are built around four main pillars: share, grow, cook and mobilize. To learn more about us.

The Depot is committed to building an organizational culture rooted in our core values. We are actively working to integrate anti-oppression and anti-racism practices, recognizing this as an ongoing process of learning and growth. As part of this process, we strive to recruit a team that reflects the diverse identities and lived experiences in NDG, ensuring our work remains inclusive and community-focused

The Community Chef Position

The Community Chef will work with staff and volunteers to plan, cook and serve food for our community meals and catering, snack program, and special events. Our free community meal reaches between 150-250  people each day and occasional events serve between 30 and 100 people.

Key Responsibilities/Tasks

• Creatively uses purchased and donated foods to make well balanced, culturally diverse, delicious and easily replicable meals.

• Responsible for 400 to 600 in-person meals, 100-200 baked goods, 100-200 catered meals, and 100-200 frozen meals per week, with flexibility to adapt to higher volumes as demand increases.

• Ensures the consistency and excellence of meals and snacks  produced according to The Depot’s healthy food policy, internal  guidelines and weekly prep flow, while maintaining open communication with team members 

• Provides leadership, organization and planning for a team of staff and volunteers to prepare and serve quality meals and snacks

• Ensures proper rotation of food and promote a safe, clean and healthy kitchen environment according to our protocols

• Supervises the Kitchen Assistant

• Responsible for annual planning, reporting and evaluations for The Depot’s community meal program.

• Helps to maintain a relaxed, positive, and welcoming kitchen and restaurant environment for all.

Required Skills and Qualifications: 

• Experience cooking diverse and nutritious meals for large groups

• Experience training and  volunteers or working in the community sector.

• Experience ordering food and managing inventory and keeping to a budget

• Passion for education and knowledge sharing with a diversity of participants (youth, seniors, marginalized individuals, etc.)

• Strong interpersonal and communication skills 

• Good oral communication skills in French, with the ability to hold a basic conversation in English. The Depot has evaluated the needs of this position and determined that a basic knowledge of French is essential, and a basic knowledge of English is required to communicate with volunteers working in the kitchen. 

• Capacity for collaborative leadership and comfort in a dynamic community environment

• Creativity and flexibility building menus based on available  foods (donations, seasonal, budgets, cultural diversity)

• Adaptable to regularly changing environments, and able to work with and accommodate for error and imperfection

• Ability to see big picture and plan for both immediate and long-term needs in the kitchen

• Comfortable working with and managing a team of volunteers with varying experience and capability 

• Excellent organizational and time management skills and ability to work under pressure