COO Food Business

Role & responsibilities

ONLY LOCAL CANDIDATES

Job Description Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Position: Chief Operating Officer (COO)
Industry: Food & Beverage / Food Retail / Food Manufacturing
Location: Bangalore
Reporting to: Founder / Managing Director
Experience: 1520+ years
Employment Type: Full-time

About the Role

We are looking for an experienced and hands-on Chief Operating Officer (COO) to lead and scale our food business across operations, manufacturing, retail/outlets, supply chain, quality, procurement, and customer experience.

The ideal candidate should have strong experience in an established Indian food brand, particularly in businesses such as Haldirams, MTR, Kanti Sweets, Bikanervala, Adyar Ananda Bhavan, Anand Sweets, Saravana Bhavan, or similar large-scale food/F&B organizations.

The COO will work closely with the Founder/MD to build robust systems, improve operational efficiency, drive profitability, and create a scalable organization capable of rapid expansion.

Key Responsibilities

1. Business & Operations Leadership

• Take overall responsibility for day-to-day business operations.
• Develop and implement operating strategies aligned with business objectives.
• Establish systems, SOPs, processes, and performance metrics across functions.
• Drive operational discipline, accountability, and execution excellence.
• Build an organization capable of scaling across multiple locations.

2. Food Manufacturing & Production

• Oversee food production/manufacturing operations, where applicable.
• Improve production planning, capacity utilization, yields, productivity, and wastage.
• Ensure consistency in taste, quality, portioning, and presentation.
• Implement strong production planning and inventory-control systems.
• Drive continuous improvement and operational efficiency.

3. Retail / Restaurant / Outlet Operations

• Lead operations across multiple stores, restaurants, kiosks, or other customer-facing formats.
• Improve sales productivity, customer experience, service standards, and outlet profitability.
• Establish outlet-level KPIs and review performance regularly.
• Ensure consistent implementation of SOPs across all locations.
• Develop systems for opening and ramping up new outlets efficiently.

4. Supply Chain & Procurement

• Oversee procurement, vendor management, warehousing, logistics, and distribution.
• Build reliable and cost-efficient sourcing systems.
• Negotiate with key suppliers and establish strategic vendor partnerships.
• Optimize inventory levels and reduce stock-outs, excess inventory, and wastage.
• Develop systems capable of supporting rapid business expansion.

5. Quality, Food Safety & Compliance

• Ensure strict adherence to food safety and hygiene standards.
• Establish quality-control systems across procurement, production, storage, and outlets.
• Ensure compliance with applicable FSSAI and other statutory requirements.
• Drive regular audits and corrective/preventive action programs.
• Ensure consistency of product quality across locations.

6. Financial & Profitability Management

• Own operational budgets and operating costs.
• Drive improvement in gross margins, contribution margins, and outlet profitability.
• Monitor food cost, labour cost, wastage, logistics cost, and overheads.
• Work closely with Finance to establish budgets, forecasts, and operating dashboards.
• Identify and execute cost-reduction and productivity initiatives without compromising quality.

7. People & Organization

• Build and lead a strong operations leadership team.
• Develop systems for recruitment, training, performance management, and succession planning.
• Create a culture of ownership, accountability, and customer focus.
• Strengthen middle management and frontline leadership capabilities.
• Ensure adequate manpower planning for existing and new locations.

8. Expansion & Growth

• Partner with the Founder/MD on expansion strategy.
• Evaluate operational readiness for new outlets, cities, formats, and markets.
• Develop standardized processes for rapid rollout of new locations.
• Ensure new locations achieve operational stability and targeted performance within defined timelines.

Key Performance Indicators

The COO will be measured on metrics including:

• Revenue and same-store sales growth
• Outlet/store profitability
• Gross and contribution margins
• Food and material cost
• Labour productivity and manpower cost
• Wastage and inventory losses
• Supply-chain efficiency
• Customer satisfaction and service quality
• Product quality and consistency
• New outlet opening timelines
• New outlet ramp-up performance
• Employee retention and productivity
• Compliance and food-safety standards

Ideal Candidate Profile

• 15-20+ years of overall experience, with significant senior leadership experience in the food/F&B industry.
• Experience handling large-scale food operations, preferably across manufacturing + retail/outlet operations.
• Candidates from organizations such as Haldirams, MTR, Kanti Sweets, Bikanervala, Adyar Ananda Bhavan, Anand Sweets, Saravana Bhavan, or comparable food businesses will be preferred.
• Proven experience managing multiple outlets/locations and large teams.
• Strong understanding of Indian food operations, procurement, supply chain, food production, and retail.
• Demonstrated experience in scaling a food business.
• Strong commercial understanding and P&L orientation.
• Experience in implementing SOPs, ERP/MIS, operational dashboards, and performance-management systems.
• Strong negotiation, leadership, problem-solving, and execution skills.
• Should be comfortable working in a high-growth, founder-led environment.

Education

• MBA/PGDM in Operations, Supply Chain, Finance, or General Management preferred.
• A degree in Hotel Management, Food Technology, Engineering, or a related field may also be considered.

Preferred candidate profile

Interested candidates can share across your updated profile to my email id as [email removed] / [phone removed]