Let’s be honest, who hasn’t wondered what it is like to work in a real-life chocolate factory!? Well, here’s the chance you have been waiting for…
As we continue our mission to make people happy through chocolate, we’re looking for a Chocolate Technician to join our Chocolate Manufacturing Team on a permanent basis.
Right from the start, we’ve never played by the rules of what people said a chocolate company should be. From our ridiculously thick Easter eggshells to our iconic giant slabs of chocolate, we are always constantly striving to be fresh, creative, innovative and always one surprising step ahead.
Our Chocolate Technicians are vital in managing the production of our award-winning chocolate across several of our lines – including the infamous Velvetiser™. Responsibilities include ensuring that all machinery settings are correct, changing over equipment when needed as well as mixing and depositing chocolate alongside monitoring samples. All of this helps us to continue manufacturing world class chocolates in line with specification and agreed parameters.
So what are you waiting for? If working within an ambient chocolate-filled environment sounds like somewhere you’d like to be, why not complete an application!
Salary: £28,411.50 per annum
Shift Pattern: Monday to Friday on a weekly rotating shift pattern of 6am – 2pm and 2pm – 10pm.
As well as a competitive salary and a range of company benefits, you’ll receive:
- 50% discount on all Hotel Chocolat products.
- PPE and uniform provided.
- Subsidised vending machines (including soup and sandwiches).
- Onsite parking and bike sheds.
- 70% discount for you and your guests when you stay at our Rabot Estate hideaway on the paradise island of Saint Lucia.
The onsite location for this role is at our Factory ‘Hadley Park’, in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, right in the heart of where our chocolates are made and where weekly, we can produce between 4 to 6 million of the chocolates we all know and love.
Hadley Park is just 5 minutes off the A141 and 1.3 miles from Huntingdon train station, with direct rail links to London King’s Cross.
What you’ll be doing….
- Ensuring all materials, equipment and resources are available before shift and during the day to complete the plan.
- Ensuring awareness of material usage and equipment handling.
- Communicating any shortages and discrepancies to your line manager on time.
- Completing and updating relevant SOPs / Standard Work.
- Driving a culture of asset specific standards and setting across all shifts.
- Training and mentoring new starters within the business on your asset / process.
- Accountability and control of received and sent produce. Ensuring good clear proactive communication to ensure minimal disruption to either customer or supplier from your asset / process.
- Accept and provide structure information between shifts to ensure no confusion or losses down to poor communication.
- Plan delivered on time in cost with targeted quality loss of less than 1%
- Confidence of running all assets on the line or same grouped assets in all departments allowing for future moves across lines with HP.
Daily KPI Reporting
- Quality
- Delivery
- Cost
- TRAKSYS data input/SIC sheet input.
- Action completion
Material Variance / Yield Control
- Record and review data highlighting any trends and concerns.
- Ensure all Elucid transactions are accurate and completed on a timely basis.
Asset Care
- PPM requirements recorded with Engineering to ensure asset downtime is minimised.
- Clear controlled storage control of any moveable parts.
- Tool control where applicable.
- Proactive care and targeted hygiene work with the Hygiene Team to ensure work area and asset stay in the best standard.
Safety and Quality Standards
- Ensure compliance with all Health and Safety Systems and to always be responsible for your own Health and Safety and that of others around you.
- Perform start-up checks and escalate any concerns.
- Ensure all international work is delivered to the right standard and with the right accuracy.
- Ensure the asset / process removes risk of foreign body contamination proactively.
- GMP compliance in your work area.
- Ensure 100% compliance with product specification.
- Food safety standard compliance, hygiene and PPE policies adhered to.
- All paperwork compliance in line with technical requirements for Food Safety.
- Being an ambassador for driving the culture of pride for the produce by setting and ensuring high standards.
- Ability to talk an external auditor through your process / procedure around utilising your asset.
Continuous Improvement
- Identify opportunities, plan how a process can be improved.
- Yield / material variance / packaging waste / line efficiency etc.
- Working project to show saving from improvements on the line / process.
- Involvement in 5S and other Kaizen instruments developed for site.
- Ability to challenge constructively and receive feedback openly.
Who you are…
- Food Safety Level 2 qualified.
- HACCP trained.
- Knowledge of KPIs.
- Knowledge of continuous improvement tools.
- Good English language skills – both written and verbal.
Who are we?
We’re one of the UK’s favourite premium chocolate brands, with a range of products spanning luxury gifts, alcohol and our pioneering drinking chocolate system, the Velvetiser™.
A cacao pod takes years to grow – it can’t be rushed if it’s going to be just right for our products. The same can be said for Hotel Chocolat, which originally started as a mint production company before we realised it was luxury chocolate that we were really passionate about.
Now, we’re market leaders in the industry. What began as an online-only business grew to over 100 stores across the UK, and we’re still growing… Today, we’re multi-category, multi-channel, and multi-territory, and our customers, colleagues, cacao farmers and suppliers all benefit from the success we make together.
To learn more about us and read about our People Pledge – our commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion – click here: hotelchocolat.com/uk/engaged-ethics/our-people.html