Operations head

About Craft My Plate

Craft My Plate is on a mission to transform how people plan and enjoy food at small to mid-sized gatherings.Our dynamic platter system lets users customize menus, adjust for guest count, and receive high-quality convenience on-time.

With strong early traction, a scalable ops model, and a category-defining product, we are building the most loved brand in the bulk food delivery space.

Role Overview

As our Culinary Product Lead, you will drive the vision, structure, and execution of the core operations. t’s a strategic and operational product role that combines customer satisfaction, pricing logic, kitchen coordination, and its operations. You’ll translate customer needs into delightful, scalable platter offerings, and ensure that what we promise is what we deliver — efficiently and profitably.

This role sits at the intersection of product, culinary, and operations, working with the founders, kitchen team, data analysts, and operations teams.

Key Responsibilities

🧠 Platter Design & Menu Innovation

• Create modular platter structures across cuisines (North Indian, South Indian, Pan-Asian, etc.) based on consumption trends, price brackets, and guest count patterns.
• Define item combinations that balance taste, texture, variety, and cost-effectiveness.
• Regularly introduce new dishes, festive menus, and experimental platters while ensuring operational feasibility.

📐 Portion Planning & Pricing Strategy

• Build logic for portion sizes per dish, per guest, and per meal occasion.
• Develop scalable pricing structures that are intuitive for customers and profitable for the business.
• Conduct competitive analysis across catering and dine-in menus to find sweet spots in price-value.

💸 Food Costing & Profitability

• Work with procurement and kitchen leads to map real-time ingredient costs.
• Continuously improve Gross Margin per platter through smart substitution, waste reduction, and batch efficiencies.
• Track and optimize per-order kitchen production cost vs customer pricing.

🔁 Customer Feedback & Menu Optimization

• Set up a feedback loop to track post-delivery satisfaction by item and platter.
• Analyze cuisine-wise drop-off rates, reorder trends, and complaints to make menu decisions.
• Own A/B testing of new dishes, customizations, and pricing packages.

🍳 Kitchen Collaboration & SOP Building

• Work with the culinary team to document SOPs for plating, portioning, packaging, and delivery time prep.
• Define how new dishes should be produced to ensure consistency across different chefs and time slots.
• Standardize kitchen production playbooks across categories to reduce dependency on individual cooks.

📦 Fulfillment & Delivery Readiness

• Collaborate with packaging & delivery teams to ensure platters are dispatched in a way that preserves quality and presentation.
• Solve for real-world issues like gravy spillage, soggy items, hot/cold mix-ups, and last-mile timing.
• Define item “deliverability” score during product design.

📊 Insights & Decision-Making

• Use data from orders, costs, feedback, and ops to define what goes on the menu.
• Build dashboards with analyst support for real-time menu performance tracking.

Ideal Candidate

• 3 – 8+ years of experience in F&B innovation, culinary product strategy, or kitchen operations
• Strong understanding of menu design, item selection, and cost-volume-profit analysis
• Has worked closely with chefs or kitchen teams in high-volume environments (cloud kitchens, catering, QSR, or hospitality)
• Passionate about food — understands flavor, customer preferences, and product-market fit for meals
• Analytical thinker who loves solving taste-cost-ops tradeoffs with scalable systems
• Comfortable rolling up sleeves to walk the kitchen floor, try the food, tweak the portions, and talk to delivery staff

Bonus Points For

• Experience in startups or early-stage ventures
• Exposure to delivery-first businesses (Zomato, Swiggy, cloud kitchens, etc.)
• Culinary education or professional kitchen exposure
• Working knowledge of cost sheets, food costing software, or ERP tools

What You’ll Get

• A seat at the table to define what India eats during life’s most memorable moments
• Opportunity to work across disciplines — food, tech, logistics, and design
• Competitive salary with potential for equity (ESOPs)

• Fast-paced, execution-first culture with direct access to the founding team

1. Vendor Outreach: Initiate outbound calls to vendors, introducing the e-commerce platform, and establishing or maintaining relationships.
2. Order Confirmation: Communicate with vendors to confirm orders, ensuring accurate product details, quantities, and delivery timelines.
3. Issue Resolution: Address and resolve any issues related to orders, payments, or product discrepancies by liaising between vendors and internal teams.
4. Feedback Collection: Gather feedback from vendors regarding their experiences with the e-commerce platform, identifying areas for improvement.
5. Contractual Agreements: Communicate and ensure vendors adhere to contractual agreements, including pricing, terms, and conditions.
6. Inventory Management: Coordinate with vendors to manage and update inventory information, ensuring product availability and accuracy on the platform.
7. New Vendor Onboarding: Assist in the onboarding process for new vendors, providing necessary information and documentation requirements.
8. Payment Follow-Up: Follow up on payment-related issues, ensuring timely and accurate processing of vendor payments.
9. Performance Tracking: Monitor vendor performance metrics, identifying trends and areas for improvement, and providing feedback to vendors.
10. Market Intelligence: Gather information on industry trends, competitor activities, and market conditions to provide insights for vendor management strategy.

Requirements:

1. Communication Skills: Excellent verbal communication skills, with the ability to convey information clearly and professionally.
2. Relationship Building: Strong interpersonal skills to build and maintain positive relationships with vendors.
3. Problem-Solving: Ability to identify and solve problems efficiently, especially in the context of order discrepancies or vendor-related issues.
4. Detail-Oriented: Attention to detail is crucial, particularly when confirming orders, managing inventory, and reviewing contractual agreements.
5. Negotiation Skills: Basic negotiation skills to ensure mutually beneficial terms with vendors.
6. Time Management: Efficiently manage time to handle multiple vendor interactions and tasks simultaneously.
7. Tech-Savvy: Comfortable using e-commerce platforms, CRM systems, and other tools relevant to vendor management.