Catering and Hospitality Specialist

Title: Catering & Hospitality Specialist
Hours: 37.5 per week
Salary: upto £48,000 + £5,800 car allowance
Location: Home Based with regular travel across the North East, North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire

Elevate Dining & Hospitality Experiences at Anchor – join us as Catering & Hospitality Specialist!

We’re proud to be England’s largest not-for-profit provider of care and housing for older people. Food is more than a service in our homes – it’s comfort, connection, culture and care. From excellently presented texture-modified dishes to vibrant family dining events, every plate had the power to enhance wellbeing and spark joy.

That’s why we’re looking for a passionate, skilled and caring Catering & Hospitality Specialist to help shape and elevate our approach to food, the dining experience, and fresh, clean and homely-feeling environments across our homes. If you’re a qualified chef with a social care background – someone who loves developing others, thrives on variety and loves to make a real difference – this could be the job for you!

What does it mean to be a Catering & Hospitality Specialist at Anchor?

• Inspire Teams through Workshops, Masterclasses and Coaching
  From hands-on kitchen sessions to regional team meetings, you’ll create an engaging learning culture – building confidence, expertise and national consistency across our catering and housekeeping teams.
• Champion Excellence in IDDSI, Specialist Diets and Nutritional Care
  As our texture-modified and specialist diets expert, you’ll train, guide and mentor colleagues to produce safe, visually appealing, and delicious IDDSI-complaint meals, fortified diets, and dishes tailored to medical, cultural, or lifestyle needs.
• Drive Standards, Safety and Quality across Catering & Hospitality
  You’ll support homes to meet and exceed food hygiene and infection control standards – conducting mock-EHO audits, reviewing due-diligence paperwork, and ensuring every dining experience in safe, dignified and high quality.
• Bring Events and Celebrations to Life
  Whether it’s a summer fete, Christmas lunch or family dining evenings, you’ll help our homes deliver memorable occasions that brings residents, loved ones, and colleagues together.
• Lead Environment & Hospitality Initiatives
  You’ll be the heart of our innovation – supporting national projects, championing best practice, and driving improvements that uplift both mealtime experience and home environments.

What you’ll bring:

• Proven chef management or hospitality leadership experience, ideally within a care or social care setting.
• A recognised catering qualification.
• Strong knowledge of IDDSI, MUST, fortified diets, allergens and dietary needs of older people.
• Creative menu development experience and a passion for producing high quality, visually appealing dishes.
• Ability to coach, motivate and support colleagues at all levels.
• Confident understanding of food safety, health & safety and housekeeping/infection control basics.

Ready to help us make every meal meaningful? Apply today!

Anchor – a great place to work

Anchor is England’s largest not-for-profit providers of care and housing for older people. Our heartfelt ambition is to transform housing and care so everyone can have a home where they love living in later life.

We’re not-for-profit which means every penny we make or save is invested in the people who live with us, the places they live and the people who work here. That means a better standard of care and customer service, better wages, more investment in training and development and improved facilities.

Our values

Every one of us can make a difference to our residents and play a part in shaping homes and services around their needs.

Our Anchor values of being Accountable, Respectful, Courageous and Honest apply to us all, whether you manage colleagues as part of your role or not.

Displaying our values can influence those around us to do the same. We can all be leaders at Anchor and should all be driven by the same customer ethos.  Our Anchor Leadership Framework helps align these values with the skills and behaviours we demonstrate.

A rewarding environment

From health and happiness to finance and your career, we’ll give you all the support you need.

Health & happiness

• Gym, fitness and wellbeing discounts
• Mental health support
• Flexible working options
• Access to online GP appointments

Finance

• Pension plan – contribute between 4% and 8% and we’ll match it or better
• Quick and easy pension transfer service
• Savings and financial advice, loans, free life assurance
• Discounts on shopping, holidays, phones, technology and more

Career

• Ongoing personal and professional development programme
• Leadership Pathways online learning resources
• Career progression and promotion opportunities

To see our full range of benefits, check out our dedicated being well website Please follow the link or copy and paste https://anchorbeingwell.co.uk/ into your browser 

Celebrating diversity, celebrating you

Anchor is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We aim to celebrate diversity and inclusion in all that we do, as we know that the more diverse our colleagues are, the better care and support we can give to our residents and each other.  

We are proud to have an LGBT+ group for our residents, and also Disability, LGBT+ and race and ethnicity colleague networks. These work to celebrate diversity, address concerns, review policy and practice and empower their members.  We also have an Inclusive Ambassador network to allow all colleagues to be part of promoting diversity and to be an ally to others.

We are a Gold Standard Inclusive Employer, a Stonewall Diversity Champion, Menopause Friendly and a signatory to the Care Leaver Covenant, HouseProud Pledge and Age Friendly Employer Pledge schemes.