Company description

Organization Overview

Are you interested in joining a committed team that is passionate about changing the world, one meal at a time? If so, you may find yourself at home at Farming Hope!

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’re looking forward to making even more of an impact in the years to come. Learn more about our organization at farminghope.org.

Farming Hope is an equal opportunity employer. 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.

At Farming Hope we have a clear vision to be a place where a diverse mix of talented people are able to learn, teach, and grow. 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.

Job description

Lead Prep Cook & Trainer *looking to fill 2 openings*

Full time hourly, Non-exempt Position

*Schedule

Schedule 1: Wednesday - Sunday | 9am - 5:30pm

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

Compensation
$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

Reports to
Chef Instructor

Application Deadline

Complete applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis with a final deadline of August 7, 2026

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.
• Assist with onsite events as needed
• Maintain high standards of organization, cleanliness, and team compliance to exceed daily health and safety requirements in the kitchen

Some flexibility in scheduling may be necessary for week-to-week scheduling.

Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• 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

Candidate Qualifications:

• 3+ years experience cooking as Lead Line/Prep Cook
• Supervisory experience
• 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
• Highly organized
• Commitment to systemic transformation
• Openness to lead production for culinary events over time

Other Preferred Qualifications:

• Bi-lingual English/Spanish fluency
• Lived experience of barriers to employment
• Experience directly working with folks overcoming major barriers to employment (i.e. homelessness, incarceration, recovery, etc)

Compensation

this position is: hourly, varies DOE, $25.00 - $28.00

Application instructions

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Deadline

August 07, 2026