Who We Are:
Founded in 2013, Thistle is an early-stage food-tech startup empowering our customers to get and stay healthy. We deliver delicious, organic, healthy, plant-forward meals, cold-pressed juices and snacks to customers in California who want to put their nutrition on auto-pilot. We are not just another food delivery startup or meal-kit company. Our focus is the health and happiness of our customers and we are revolutionizing how fresh, nutritious, high-quality food is purchased, manufactured, and delivered at scale. Thistle is headquartered in San Francisco and we are backed by some amazing investors in the Bay Area and beyond.
About the Role
Thistle is looking for an R&D Auditor to provide support to our Culinary R&D, culinary operations, and QA teams by managing daily recipe auditing and help ensure quality control for our meals. You should have a great attention to detail and be well-versed in recipe editing, scaling, and cooking at scale. Experience with quality control is a huge plus. In this role you will help build out a robust, reliable recipe system that is scalable as we continue to grow and expand. Your work collecting yield and recipe data will enable us to have consistent, delicious, and nutritious recipes for the culinary production team to follow. This full-time role will ladder up into the Culinary R&D team and will initially be based out of our Vacaville production kitchen
What You’ll Do
- Ensure meals are being properly executed at scale by:
- Overseeing weekly audits of new dish components and dishes at scale
- Recording & tracking yields of basic components that have been yielding inconsistent results
- Editing or modifying existing recipes based on new equipment and tech
- Making changes to recipes, based on changes required by R&D team and culinary operations
- Overseeing weekly plating audits of new dishes
- Tasting food to ensure it’s up to our standards and in line with our expectations
- Collaborating with the QA team – act as the culinary liaison for tasting of QA retain meals and weekly plate audits
- Helping us build out an internal QC auditing process & certification program
- Oversee monthly audits of new ingredients with unknown yields
- Ensure documents and databases are accurate and up-to-date
- Perform internal audits on problematic ingredients or recipes as called out by either culinary operations or R&D team
- Ensure any updates are communication with relevant stakeholders
- Act as a liaison between culinary operations and R&D team:
- Surface production issues with prep/cook methods and instructions
- Provide support for allergen flow – ensure correct allergy replacement meals & recipes are being followed
- Identify potential issues with new recipes or components – act as an advocate for production
- Provide on-the-ground support for production, and identify areas for improvement
- Promote cooperation and teamwork through effective communication, training, and support to the staff executing menus post-audit
- Required Schedule:
- Training to occur in Oakland with the R&D, Ops teams and QA teams for the first 1-2 weeks, and then transition to Vacaville for full-time role
- Weekly meeting with the R&D team to discuss weekly audit schedule, planning, and results
- Long-term, willingness to travel to SF once or twice a month to work with the R&D team
What You’ll Bring
- A passion for food, health & wellness
- 3+ years of food-related experience, bonus points for experience working for a catering company or similar large scale food producer
- Experience working with gluten-free, dairy-free, plant-based food is a huge plus
- Experience with quality control also a huge plus
- Positive attitude, strong communication skills and excellent attention to detail
- Consistent, reliable, and timely communications with other departments is required
- Familiarity and comfort with the Google Suite, especially Google Sheets
- Ability to prioritize, self-start and self-direct work in a fast-paced, dynamic environment
Life At Thistle
- Join a diverse, passionate & driven team of all backgrounds
- Delicious & nutritious meals, snacks & juice to help keep you feeling healthy and energized.
- Fun team outings(company picnics, happy hours, etc.)
- Competitive & Fair Pay
