Job Description

Senior Operational Excellence Manager
We thrive on challenge and change. We rise to challenges together.
Salary: 70,000 - 80,000 per annum
Location; Spalding, Lincs
Shift: Monday - Friday, 08.30 - 17.00
Excellent rewards package including - 25 days holiday, 20% short-term bonus, private medical insurance for yourself and family, Life Insurance
Why join us?
We're proud to offer you a career with options to explore and pursue. Where you'll be supported to work hard, push further, and show resilience. As a valued Senior Operational Excellence Manager we'll support your ambition, reward your resilience, and encourage you to rise to challenges and create a career you can be proud of too.
Who are Bakkavor:
Bakkavor is one of the leading providers of fresh prepared food in the UK, with an international presence in the US and China. Our 19,000 employees operate from 39 locations, developing and producing innovative food for a wide variety of occasions and budgets. In the UK, we work with leading grocery retailers, focusing on their own label brands.
This fantastic opportunity will be based at our Bakkavor Spalding site, which employs over 1,470 people across 3 manufacturing facilities & 1 Distribution Centre. We specialise in making hand crafted sandwich wraps, salads, dips, soups & sauces and mayonnaise
About the role.
In this challenging and varied role, you will develop and implement the site's Continuous Improvement strategy, lead critical improvement projects, and facilitate and coach / support site teams in delivering the deployment of the Bakkavor Operating System across the site.
You will design and execute methodologies aligned with the manufacturing strategy, ensuring robust financial governance to deliver projects on time and within budget.
Accountabilities of the role.
Development of CI Strategy & Culture - Develop a Continuous Improvement strategy for the site, in conjunction with the site leadership team. Strategic direction to be aligned to Sector and Group Operational Excellence strategies and based on an in-depth analysis of business processes. Establish a continuous improvement culture in partnership with the site leadership team.
Factory of the Future / Capital Plans / Payback projects - Coordinate and lead key projects for improvement across all levels of the organisation. This may
include supervising project teams directly or collaborate with managers to eliminate waste (in all forms) and deliver new capacity / capability against the manufacturing strategy / business growth plans. To cover all E2E aspects of the business.
Developing and supporting site PIP plan delivery - Developing and supporting delivery of annual PIP plan in line with site manufacturing strategy.
Working cross functionally to ensure all departments contribute, assist, and deliver quantifiable performance improvement across the business
Shaping and deploying a standard operating model within manufacturing -
Shaping and deploying the Bakkavor Operating System into site ways of working. The Bakkavor Operating System represents standard processes, tools / techniques and behaviours that support the manufacture of products, creating value for the company and customers (to include Redzone Productivity Module)
Deployment of MCRS (part of the Bakkavor Operating System)
Shaping and deploying standard Management Control & Reporting Structure (MCRS) across
balance score of card metrics into all functions and areas.
Driving and supporting team Kaizen events - Supporting the delivery of team-based Kaizen improvements in line with top loss data and site
manufacturing strategy. Working cross functionally to ensure all departments contribute, assist, and deliver quantifiable performance improvement across the business.
Communication & employee engagement -
Ensure mechanisms are in place to communicate and drive employee involvement within continuous improvement projects and continually review their effectiveness and explore new options which link to & support the site engagement plans.
KPI data evaluation / Tableau expert
Ensure that all improvement projects have sufficient infrastructure to allow tracking, review and evaluation processes. Development of reporting mechanisms to enable the site to analyse data, understand opportunities for improvement and support the creation of improvement narratives.
Advanced problem-solving capability
Supporting site teams to solve complex problem by facilitating structured problem-solving events.
About you.
With a proven track record in an operational role you'll:

• Experience of food manufacturing industry (preferably chilled)
• Minimum Foundation level in lean or equivalent and Six Sigma (ideally yellow belt)
• Ability to build credible & successful working relationships at all levels within the organisation
• Experience of working closely and effectively with support functions including: Planning, Engineering, Technical, Process, SHE and HR
• Lean manufacturing experience
• Experience of leading change projects
• Able to influence and build relationships at all levels
• Good presentation and facilitation skills

You could be working in an Operational Excellence role or Factory Leadership looking for your next challenge.
What you'll receive.
As an equal opportunity employer, we're committed to providing a safe and rewarding environment for you to thrive in. This is why we work hard to deliver benefits, rewards and wellbeing offerings that are important to you.
You'll enjoy:

• Car allowance 8,400
• Bonus up to 20%

• A stakeholder pension scheme
• Personal accident Insurance
• Free independent mortgage advice
• Employee assistance programme

• A range of voluntary benefits

• Holiday purchase scheme
• Additional life assurance
• Dental & hospital cash plans
• Discounted tutoring for children
• Access to financial learning tools
• Affordable loans via your salary
• Proud to be and loyal service awards.

• Plus, a commitment to your wellbeing that includes emotional, physical and financial support services delivered by our fantastic team of wellbeing champions.

When joining us you can expect a competitive salary, bonus, private medical and a strong benefits package and excellent career progression prospects across the Bakkavor group.
Proud to be Bakkavor
We're proud to be the market leader in the UK fresh prepared food industry. We're proud to supply meals, salads, desserts, pizza and bread to leading grocery retailers including Tesco, M&S, Sainsbury's and Waitrose. We're driven by the hard work and passion of our people and are delighted to offer a wide range of careers across our business - come and join our dedicated Bakkavor team!
Find out more and apply.
Bakkavor
We are the leading provider of fresh prepared food in the UK, with operations also in the US, positioning the Group well in these high-growth markets. We leverage our consumer insight and scale to provide innovative food that offers quality, choice, convenience, and freshness. Around 15,000 colleagues operate from 31 sites across our two markets supplying a large portfolio of products across meals, pizza & bread, salads and desserts to leading grocery retailers in the UK and US.
Department: Manufacturing
Location:
Spalding, GB, PE11 2BB
Workplace: Site Based
Date: 5 Sept 2025
Req ID: 25930

Skills Required