R&D Chef Apprentice I - Ready to Heat

Founded in 2013, Home Chef is the leading meal solutions company with both a retail and online presence. Available online at homechef.com and in retail at more than 2,100 Kroger grocery stores, Home Chef is committed to inspiring and enabling more people to cook simple, delicious meals, no matter how busy they are.

In 2023, Home Chef introduced a new brand, Tempo! Tempo features a rotating selection of ready-to-heat meals delivered directly to your door. These meals are better-for-you versions of familiar favorites, designed to save you time and reduce stress while maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Our Tempo menu includes options that are protein-packed, fiber-rich, calorie and carb conscious, keto-friendly, and dietitian-approved.

Similar to our recipes, we recognize that variety is the spice of life, and therefore, our employees also bring their uniqueness and color to our fantastic team. We’re eager to work with humble team players and pragmatic next-level thinkers to innovate on Home Chef’s offerings.

 

This role sits in the culinary department as part of the Tempo team. The RTH R&D Chef Apprentice will be asked to assist Tempo R&D chefs with key initiatives including, but not limited to: supporting the development of compound ingredient formulations with chef guidance, cooking to support R&D chef meal development, preparing ingredients for product sampling, editing production meals to ensure accuracy, and assisting in basic photography work.

This role will work in both the R&D kitchen at the Old Post Office in downtown Chicago, IL and in the production kitchen in Bedford Park, IL.

Detailed Responsibilities

Kitchen Operations

• Manage and maintain ingredients for scaling recipes at our Bedford Park production kitchen, including taking a regular inventory, placing orders for stock items,  and cycling out old or expired products
• Ensuring that needed items are properly transferred from the production kitchen to the R&D kitchen
• Own inventory of RTH ingredients in the R&D kitchen, including knowledge of where items are located, as well as tracking/storing items that are needed both near and long term
• Work with Culinary Apprentices to help manage the grocery process, including making list, shopping, and putting away groceries, as well as sourcing last minute items 
• Helping to order kitchen supplies, including speciality ingredients & kitchen equipment, directly from suppliers, production facilities and/or online sources 
• Become a resource for cross-functional teams

Compound Ingredient Formulation

• Bring at least 10 new or improved compound ingredients to approved status each month
• Cook bench top rough draft formulations of compound ingredients to dial in viability for production (flavor, nutritionals, ease of execution, performance over time, etc.)
• Participate in compound ingredient feedback discussions and then implement that feedback into formulation and procedure improvements 
• Refine ingredient amounts, recipe wording and timing to ensure ingredient success
• Scale recipes to full R&D batches for testing and further refinements to the formulation
• Scale recipes to full production batches and test as needed at our production facility in Bedford Park
• Follow all sanitation and GMP rules in the production kitchen
• Respond to feedback from R&D and production chefs to continuously improve ingredient work and workflows
• Test new techniques to increase quality, yield, nutritionals and efficiency of compound ingredients
• Test recipe techniques and changes on an as needed basis
• Participate in setup and tasting for the new ingredient/product sampling process

New Meal Development 

• Participate in production meal edit checks each week
• Assess accuracy of meal assembly photos on live menus and reshoot photos as needed
• Taste and provide feedback daily on all meals Tempo R&D chefs develop, including red meat, vegetarian, soy, seafood, shellfish, and pork (with limited exceptions) 
• Analyze customer comments and make recommendations on ways to improve
• Help photo team and operate camera equipment under guidance of food photographer on an as needed basis

Team and Cross Functional Meetings

• Regularly attend and participate in all required Tempo culinary and  cross-functional team meetings
• Execute key project work and drive workstreams when necessary

This position requires 0-10% travel. 

Qualifica