Catering Consultant

Overview

The healthcare team, created in 2000, are experts in the field, with a wealth of operational, managerial, and training experience and knowledge both within apetito but also from our previous roles within the healthcare industry, providing us with a thorough and empathetic understanding of our customers and enabling us to fully support their strategy and vision. We supply catering products, systems, and services to healthcare organisations both directly and through contract caterers.

Based upon building long-term partnerships, our team has developed and grown significantly, and we have a great mix of training and operations, catering consultants, marketing, and national account managers.

The Healthcare team is led by a dynamic senior leadership team (SLT). There are currently 6 Catering Consultants in the team, each covering a separate section of the UK.

Due to the expansion of the healthcare business, we are investing in the team and adding an additional Catering Consultant.

Our aspiration and complete commitment is to continue to grow the Healthcare business each year and remain the market leaders in the Healthcare sector; something we are immensely proud of.

There is a high degree of autonomy within the team, with a mix of independent working, smaller group working in your territory, and coming together as a whole team for mobilisations.

This role would suit someone with Account Manager experience and a proven sales record in the catering industry. You'll show passion for building the healthcare business, offering our product, system, service proposition through a consultative selling approach and building on sound relationships. You will be responsible for managing existing business, as well as growing new business. Our aim is to always exceed our customers’ expectations so patience, understanding, and proactivity are essential in this role.

This role is home-based covering operational Hospitals across the North West (and to our Head Office in Wiltshire) so will involve early starts, late finishes, and overnight stays.

The geographical area covered by this role includes: Cheshire, Lancashire, Derbyshire & parts of Yorkshire. (Further territory details to be discussed at interview.)

Who we are

apetito is the UK’s leading food supplier to the health and social care sectors serving more than 1,300 care homes, health care, and education settings.

Our meals are expertly crafted by our dieticians and chefs, and then frozen to lock in the goodness.

Wiltshire Farm Foods, our sister company, is the UK’s largest ready meal supplier, cooking and delivering over 330 different delicious frozen ready meals across the UK.

Responsibilities

The Healthcare Team are ambitious and have great plans for growth. This will be achieved by:

• Identifying new business opportunities, within the territory, that fit the existing healthcare strategy and converting qualified prospects.
• Developing incremental business in existing accounts as appropriate whilst at the same time ensuring that existing business is retained.
• Providing first-class continuing service, handling feedback/complaints effectively and efficiently to ensure a high level of business retention.
• In addition, the catering consultant will be expected to support the national account team which manages our business with Contract Caterers within the NHS. This will involve providing regular support at the sites run by our key contract caterer customers within your area.

Other Areas of Activity:

• Monitoring monthly sales and service reports to ensure you are fully aware of activity in your area.
• Networking within the industry to gain information regarding potential prospects as well as key developments within the industry.
• Attending the regular face-to-face team meetings and sharing ideas. Effectively utilising market intelligence to develop best practices, whilst constructively sharing solutions/benchmarks within the team.
• Assisting colleagues with new business implementations and mobilisations within the healthcare arena.
• Effectively promoting the brand via active involvement in local/national trade events.

About you

Essential:

• Sales experience.
• Proven experience of achieving and exceeding sales targets – a focus on target achievement.
• Experience of managing accounts and complex customers.
• Agile communication and presentation skills - able to engage and build trust at all levels of the business, from boardroom to kitchen.
• Demonstrate great team working (internally and externally).
• Demonstrate organisational skills and proactivity.
• Proactive approach to time management and prioritisation to manage a complex workload effectively.
• GCSE's/A Levels to support a high standard of business communication skills and basic numerical analysis.
• Clean or virtually clean driving license.

Desirable:

• NHS sales experience.
• Relationships with NHS Catering Managers.
• Cook Chill/Cook Freeze experience.
• Understanding of nutrition and catering systems in the NHS.

Personal Qualities:

• Empathy and understanding of our culture of ‘making a real difference’.
• Motivated to build strong long-term business, not just getting a quick result.
• Self-motivated and resilient.
• Pragmatic operator.
• A team player: works with others to achieve optimum results in their own role and for the business as a whole.
• Personable; perceived as a low-pressure operator with integrity.
• Diplomatic, but assertive and demonstrates gravitas.

Due to the geography of this role and the nature of working with customers, flexibility with working hours will be needed.

Travel to customers across the region and to national events, including overnight stays, will be a regular requirement - typically 1 night per week.

A company car is provided to facilitate this and a clean (or virtually clean) driving licence is essential.

As this role involves working with elderly and vulnerable customers, it is exempt from The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and requires a Standard DBS Disclosure.

Company Benefits

• Competitive salary – accredited Living Wage employer.
• Company car.
• 25 days holiday per year, plus bank holidays.
• Option to purchase up to 5 additional days holiday per year.
• Generous annual bonus scheme.
• Pension scheme - employer matched contributions up to 5%.
• Life assurance scheme worth 2x annual salary.
• Free turkey or voucher at Christmas.
• apetito perks scheme including salary sacrifice options and retail discounts.

Our Values

As a family-owned business, we take great pride in being a company that makes a real difference and is dedicated to creating outstanding meals to be proud of.

We develop a range of products designed to enhance health and well-being for all our customers.

We are driven by a passion for service and dedicated to feeding some of the UK’s most vulnerable people.

We proudly support British food and farming, focusing on using the best ethical and sustainable produce in alignment with our goal to reach Net Zero by 2040.

Our ethical standards are recognised by the ETI and we are an accredited Living Wage employer. Learn more about apetito’s commitment to a more sustainable future.

We embrace inclusion, empowering individuals from diverse backgrounds.

Our commitment to making a real difference extends to customers, communities, and staff and we're on a mission to build an inclusive workplace where everyone reaches their full potential.