Senior Food Development Manager

Senior Food Development Manager

Function: Star Pubs (Retail Team)
Location: Field Based
Salary: £62,500 - £72,500 base depending on experience, plus 15% benefits allowance paid in cash & full benefits listed below.

Contract: Permanent 

Closing Date: 7th August 2026 Please note we may close vacancies early when we receive significant numbers of applications.

Did you know that HEINEKEN own over 2,400 pubs in the UK?  HEINEKEN has a long-held belief that pubs are an integral part of British culture and that well-invested pubs, run by skilled operators can prosper and thrive. As the nation’s leading pub, cider and beer company and the name behind a host of brilliant brands, we’re looking for equally brilliant people to help us on our journey to building a better future.

At Star Pubs, our Just Add Talent (JAT) estate continues to grow, creating exciting opportunities to shape the future of food in pubs across the UK. Food plays a huge part in helping our operators build thriving businesses, attract new customers and keep communities coming back.

There's so much more to HEINEKEN than meets the eye, and right now we're looking for a Senior Food Development Manager to join our Star Pubs Retail team.

About the role
This is a fantastic opportunity to shape the future of food across one of the UK's fastest-growing managed pub estates.

Reporting to the Retail Director, you'll lead the development of our food proposition across the JAT estate, ensuring we've got the right menus, in the right pubs, at the right price and deliver operational efficiencies to ensure that we are optimising profit margins. You'll develop food strategies that increase sales, improve profitability and give our operators the tools they need to deliver a great experience for their customers.

You'll lead a team consisting of a Food Development Manager and Food Support Executive, working closely with senior leaders across Retail, Operations, Property, Finance, Procurement and Supplier Management.

While your main focus will be our JAT estate, you'll also support the wider Star Pubs business. You'll become the go-to expert on food trends, menu innovation, kitchen design and operational best practice, helping shape future investment and long-term strategy.

So what will you be doing? Here's some of the key accountabilities.

• Create, own and deliver the food strategy across our JAT concepts, ensuring our food offer continues to evolve with consumer trends and delivers profitable growth.
• Act as the subject matter expert on food, providing insight and advice to the Star Pubs Senior Leadership Team on market trends, innovation, pricing, forecasting and food retail performance.
• Lead the development, refresh and optimisation of food menus, ensuring every concept has a commercially successful food offer, right for its customers and easy for operators to deliver consistently.
• Partner with Finance and Commercial teams to shape pricing and promotional activity using consumer insight, market analysis and supplier data.
• Work alongside Regional Operations and Central Operations teams to ensure our food strategy is delivered consistently across the estate.
• Improve food profitability by identifying opportunities across supply chain, menu engineering, stock management, waste reduction and operational delivery.
• Build strong relationships with suppliers and work alongside Supplier Management to deliver value, innovation and high service standards.
• Develop the food capability of Star Pubs colleagues, JAT Operators and lessees through coaching, training and practical support.
• Provide specialist guidance to Property teams on kitchen design, equipment and investment decisions, ensuring kitchens are fit for purpose and deliver long-term value.
• Support our leased and tenanted pubs by sharing food expertise, practical tools and best practice to help grow sales, improve margins and simplify operations.
• Contribute to food-focused PR activity and develop forecasting tools that support future investment and commercial decision making.

Who we're looking for
We're looking for someone with significant experience leading food strategy within a multi-site hospitality or retail environment. You'll combine commercial thinking with hands-on experience of running successful food operations and have a genuine passion for creating food offers that customers love and operators can deliver consistently.

You'll be confident working with senior stakeholders, using insight to influence decisions and leading projects that make a real commercial difference. You'll also enjoy developing others and help