This is a rare opportunity to sit right at the heart of Sprout's team to help shape what people eat every day. You'll work hands-on in our test kitchen, turning creative ideas into real dishes and products that land in restaurants and, in future, on shelves. You'll learn how great food scales — how flavour, cost, consistency and process all come together — while working closely with experienced food leaders who care deeply about quality. If you love food, enjoy the detail, and want to grow your skills in product development without losing the joy of cooking, this role gives you space to do both.
There's no fixed closing date for this role. We're reviewing applications and meeting candidates on a rolling basis, so if you're interested, we'd encourage you to apply sooner rather than later. The role is available to start as soon as possible.
Role Purpose: You support the creation, development, and improvement of Sprout & Co's food offering across restaurants and retail. You'll take creative briefs and turn them into consistently delicious, scalable, and commercially viable products — from early ideation through testing, refinement, and handover for launch.
This is a hands-on, detail-driven role that blends creativity with technical execution. You'll work closely with the Food Development team and Creative Director to ensure every product meets Sprout's food principles, brand ethos, and operational realities.
Three Things You Own
1. Recipe Development & Refinement (QSR + Retail)
You own the development and improvement of recipes — translating briefs into scalable, repeatable products that work in high-volume restaurant environments and packaged retail formats.
2. Technical Recipe Specs & Documentation
You own the accuracy and completeness of recipe documentation, ensuring every recipe is fully specified, tested, and ready for handover.
3. Product Testing & Validation
You support and deliver testing across flavour, shelf-life, feasibility, and scalability — ensuring products are commercially sound, safe, and launch-ready.
Five Areas / Projects You'll Impact
1. New Menu & Product Development
Supporting ideation and development of new dishes and products across the restaurant menu and retail range, aligned to Sprout's food principles.
2. Recipe Testing, Tastings & Iteration
Running tastings, gathering feedback, and refining recipes to balance flavour, simplicity, consistency, and cost.
3. Retail Product Development Support
Contributing to retail-focused work including shelf-life testing, flavour deterioration testing, and feasibility trials.
4. Recipe Specification & Handover
Creating clear, detailed recipe specs including weights, yields, methods, equipment, photos, allergens, hold times, and supplier inputs.
5. Commercial & Operational Alignment
Working with cross-functional partners to ensure recipes meet margin targets, allergen requirements, labelling standards, and operational constraints.
Ten Ways We'll Know You're Winning
1. You take creative briefs and deliver well-considered recipes to agreed timelines.
2. New and improved recipes consistently meet Sprout's food principles and brand ethos.
3. Tastings are well prepared, clearly presented, and showcase thoughtful, original ideas.
4. Recipes scale smoothly from test kitchen to restaurant or retail production.
5. Recipe specs are accurate, detailed, and ready for operational handover.
6. You balance flavour with commercial realities — improving cost, yield, or efficiency without compromising quality.
7. Retail product tests (shelf-life, feasibility, flavour stability) are well run and clearly documented.
8. Feedback from tastings and trials is incorporated quickly and constructively.
9. Cross-functional partners find you organised, reliable, and easy to work with.
10. The food development pipeline feels more structured, dependable, and creative because of your contribution.
Experience that would set you up well for this role:
* Hands-on experience developing or refining recipes in a restaurant, catering, food-to-go, or food production environment
* Confidence testing, scaling, and documenting recipes clearly and consistently
* A solid grounding in cooking methods, flavour development, yields, and portion control
* A practical understanding of food safety basics and allergens
* Comfort costing recipes and working toward commercial targets
Extra Sprout-points if you've:
* Worked on retail or packaged food products
* Supported shelf-life or flavour stability testing
* Taken part in factory trials or central kitchen production
* Worked alongside technical or QA teams
* Used spreadsheets confidently for costing and recipe calculations
At your core, you're someone who:
* Cares deeply about food and standards
* Takes pride in getting things right
* Enjoys turning creativity into something reliable and scalable
* Is excited to grow your skills in a fast-moving, ambitious food business
Why You'll Love This Role
* Competitive Salary and bonus potential
* 28 days annual leave (5 days reserved for Greenhouse closure in December)
* Free lunch every day you work, and 50% off Sprout for you + 3 friends at other times
* Wellness supports such as Bike to Work scheme, free WebDoctor and Employee Assistance Programme
* Paid 4 week sabbatical after every 5 years' service
* Private pension scheme with 3% employer contributions and free access to Personal Financial Advisers
* Flexibility, autonomy, and the chance to build something meaningful from the inside out