Programme Manager - FLEX and Food Intervention

FareShare UK

Job Description – Programme Manager – FLEX and Food Intervention

Reporting to: Head of Food Alliances

Location: Field based

Contract: Permanent

Hours: 35hrs

Salary: £35,245 - £37,100

We welcome applications from all backgrounds. We are a Disability Confident Employer that welcome disabled applicants and provide reasonable adjustments.

About FareShare

FareShare is the UK’s national network of charitable food redistributors, made up of 18 independent organisations. Together, we take good quality surplus food from right across the food industry and get it to nearly 9,500 frontline charities and community groups.

The food we redistribute is nutritious and good to eat. It reaches charities across the UK, including school breakfast clubs, older people’s lunch clubs, homeless shelters, and community cafes. Every week we provide enough food to create almost a million meals for vulnerable people.

Every year, more than three million tonnes of food go to waste in the UK, enough for 7 billion meals. Meanwhile, the cost-of-living crisis is driving millions into food insecurity. FareShare has a plan to help tackle the cost-of-living crisis using England’s surplus food.

We are fortunate to benefit from the support of major retailers, the media, sports ambassadors and a groundswell of public engagement. As a result, there has never been a more exciting time to join an organisation at the heart of public consciousness.

FareShare’s Strategy & Vision
Vision: We have the vision of a UK where “No good food goes to waste”.

Mission: To use surplus, fit for consumption, food to feed those who are vulnerable in the UK by supporting front line charitable organisations that tackle the cause and not just the symptoms of food poverty.

Our Purpose:We are doers. We are a community. We change lives.

Our Values:Passion – for our cause and the challenge that lies ahead

Ambition – to go the extra mile and drive the change that must happen

Respect – for ourselves, each other, our volunteers, our partners and our beneficiaries

Collaboration – it’s only by working with others that we can be stronger

Focus – on providing the best service possible so that we deliver and achieve the most for our clients/customers.

The role

FareShare’s Food Team works with the UK food industry to rescue as much surplus food as possible. Our ability to build strong and meaningful partnerships with food businesses is central to our long-term strategy and our continued ability to support charities with much needed food. FareShare have ambitious food volume targets and must remain agile and innovative to continue to access and redistribute food.

As the Programme Manager – FLEX and Food Intervention you will be central to this ongoing agility; leading and delivering important projects which improve our flexibility and offer to the food industry. This role will be primarily delivering our Food Life Extension Project (FLEX).

The FLEX project is a pioneering UK project exploring ways to manage the inconsistency of surplus food supplies and to prevent gluts of produce going to waste.

THE PROBLEM - FareShare has always faced a challenge during UK harvest periods of being offered more of a particular food than our charities can possibly use in time, farmers and growers must estimate yields and with a fluctuating climate this can often lead to surplus.

THE SOLUTION - We are taking short life foods, particularly produce, and canning, freezing, juicing and cooking them turning them into long life sources of nutrition for our charities. We aim to increase the volume of accepted produce, expanding our year-round offering to communities and create a national store of food which can be drawn upon when fresh supplies are low.

The Julia and Hans Rausing Trust have supported this initiative with a generous donation over 3 years. Our ambition is to use this funding to build long term sustainable solutions for FareShare to accept these gluts of produce to ensure year-round support for communities. The project has been running small scale trials for the first phase, and we are seeking a dynamic and entrepreneurial individual to take this project into the next phase, delivering a significant step change in the volume of food rescued over the upcoming UK harvests.

You will work closely with Account Managers in the Food Team to ensure that projects align with wider partnership plans, whilst being understood and engaged with by all relevant stakeholders. Furthermore, for the FLEX project you will be central in our continued reporting to the Julia and Hans Rausing Trust on how their generous donation has helped save previously wasted food and supported communities.

Excellent organisational and project management skills are an essential part of this role; you will need to co-ordinate and lead several, often complex projects concurrently. You will need to ensure that all projects have clear timelines and measurables, and that any key risks are identified, communicated and mitigated. Timelines are particularly important with the fluctuating and short dated nature of the produce we seek to rescue.

We are looking for a dynamic and confident individual who can bring creativity and initiative to The Food team and project programmes to move from initial trial phase through the development of the governance and blueprint, and into embedded business as usual operations. This is an opportunity to play a key part in fundamentally changing the way the UK food industry manages and interacts with harder-to-reach surplus and gluts of produce whilst supporting millions of people in the process.

Main areas of responsibility

FLEX Project

Programme Strategy & Development

• Collaborate with FareShare's senior management to support in the development of a holistic strategy and operating model for the FLEX programme.
• Define clear targets, goals, and deliverables for the programme.
• Coordinate with internal and external stakeholders to effectively publicise the programme and expand the project network.

Partner Engagement & Onboarding

• Working closely with the account managers in the Food Team, particularly within Produce to actively identify and engage with new and existing FareShare partners to participate in FLEX.
• Work across Food, Network and Marketing teams to ensure that partner’s contributions via FLEX are appropriately celebrated and the programme has regular and relevant coverage in the media.
• Ensure that the funding partner is kept informed of progress and feed into the regular reporting structure with them.

Operational Management and Coordination

• Facilitate coordination of any further trials in previously untested areas of processing
• Ensure smooth and efficient operation of the FLEX programme
• Monitor and track programme performance against strategic KPIs.
• Ensure compliance with all regulatory and FareShare standards.
• Ensure any FLEX programmes are commercially viable and within budget

Food Team innovation -

• Think outside the box on new ways of approaching existing barriers and challenges; find ways to do things differently, creating a vision for new ways of working.
• Listen to and understand the requirements of food partners by working closely with account managers and suggest new trials and projects that can help FareShare deliver excellent partnerships.
• Work across a range of teams to ensure that projects are delivered successfully and are well documented, measured and monitored.
• Use excellent communication skills to consult and inform team members in an appropriate and timely way and be prepared to manage challenging conversations.

Person Specification

As an employer committed to Equal Opportunities, we will assess applications in line with these criteria that we consider either as being essential or desirable in this role.

Essential Criteria

• Extensive experience of delivering complex, collaborative projects
• Experience of setting up and running new service improvement and/or service development projects, involving a range of stakeholders
• Experience of managing and communicating change projects, working with key stakeholders and teams to build support and engagement
• Detail-oriented and analytical, with the ability sit across multiple projects at once and synthesise complex information for different audiences
• Excellent written/verbal communication skills with the ability to communicate credibly with senior internal stakeholder and external partners including through the creation of written decks/briefings
• Experience of collaborating across multiple teams and have strong prioritisation skills to align consensus around key goals and targets
• Quick to learn new processes and technologies particularly within manufacturing, and to build the working relationships required to deliver fast, sustainable results

Desirable Criteria

• Proven experience in project management, preferably in the food industry, manufacturing or related sector
• Project Management qualification e.g. Agile, Prince
• Excellent organisational, leadership, and communication skills with ability to line manage or mentor colleagues

Competencies and behaviours

• Commitment to FareShare’s mission and values and strategy
• Flexibility and ability to work well as part of a team and alone.
• A commitment to Equal Opportunities.
• Strong IT skills and knowledge of Microsoft Office.
• Able to present FareShare professionally and act as an ambassador
• Able to demonstrate respect for work colleagues and FareShare beneficiaries
• A positive and “can-do” attitude

Benefits

• Hybrid / Flexible working, with regular UK travel
• 28 days’ annual leave + 8 bank holidays
• Employers pension contribution
• Employee Assistance Program
• Interest free bicycle purchase loan scheme
• Season ticket loan

Closing date for receipt of applications is - 2nd April 2024
Interviews will take place week commencing - 8th April 2024

Further rounds of interviews will be arranged as required

For any further questions on this please email [email protected]