About Food Stories

Foodstories is redefining the gourmet food landscape in India, catering to the nation’s most discerning and affluent consumers with an unwavering passion for exceptional culinary experiences. With an ambitious vision to become the leader in India’s gourmet food space, Foodstories is committed to shaping the narrative around food, while offering products and experiences that delight the senses and elevate everyday dining.

Currently, Foodstories operates flagship stores in Ambience Mall, Vasant Kunj (Delhi), Banjara Hills (Hyderabad), Hill Road (Mumbai), Lokhandwala, Andheri (Mumbai) and Prestige Sterling Square (Bengaluru) with customers also enjoying seamless access through FoodStories.Shop. These thoughtfully designed spaces offer a curated selection of premium, farm-sourced produce, artisanal bakery items, bespoke cheeses, single-origin chocolates, exotic spices, and more. The range is further complemented by a unique all-day dining café, where patrons can indulge in a culinary journey that includes a specialized estate-tocup organic coffee program and a cutting-edge bio-hacking zone, designed to address the evolving wellness needs of today’s health-conscious consumer.

Nearly half of the offerings at Foodstories are freshly prepared on-site, ensuring the highest standards of quality and flavor. The brand also provides an exclusive assortment of domestic and international pantry essentials, dry fruits, and other premium food products, all handpicked to cater to the most refined tastes. Looking ahead, Foodstories plans to expand its footprint with multiple stores across Gurgaon supported by state-of-the-art commissaries, back-end kitchens, and dark stores.

Founded by Ashni and Avni Biyani,

Foodstories is the result of their shared passion for food and their commitment to offering unparalleled quality and innovation. Owned and operated by Foodstories Private Limited,

Foodstories is setting a new standard in gourmet food retail in India, combining luxury, sustainability, and culinary excellence in every product and experience.

Visit us :

https://www.foodstories.shop/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/foodstoriesshop/posts/?feedView=all&viewAsMember;=true

About the Role

We are looking for a National Head - Commissary & Central Food Operations to own the end-to-end performance of FoodStories' commissary network.

The role will be responsible for establishing standardized processes across cities, improving product quality and consistency, optimizing raw material and production costs, and ensuring that the commissary network is capable of supporting rapid store expansion.

The ideal candidate will combine strong food operations expertise with commercial and procurement understanding and will be comfortable working across multiple cities, teams and stakeholders.

A key part of the role will be to build systems that allow FoodStories to scale nationally without compromising product quality, consistency or customer experience.

Key Responsibilities

- Commissary Operations & SOPs

- Review, streamline and standardize all commissary SOPs across the network.
- Own the end-to-end commissary process covering procurement, ordering, receiving, storage, production, portioning, packaging, inventory and dispatch.
- Establish standardized operating processes that can be replicated across cities and new commissaries.
- Identify operational gaps and eliminate unnecessary complexity, duplication and process variation.
- Build clear operating manuals, checklists and process controls for commissary teams.
- Establish systems to ensure SOP adherence across all locations.

2. Product Quality & Consistency
- Own product quality and consistency across all commissaries and markets.
- Establish clear product specifications,



recipes, yields, portion sizes and quality benchmarks.
- Ensure that products manufactured across different cities deliver the same taste, texture, appearance and quality.
- Develop robust quality-control mechanisms and regular commissary audits.
- Identify root causes of quality deviations and drive corrective actions.
- Work closely with Store Operations to understand customer and store-level feedback and translate it into improvements at the commissary level.

3. Procurement & Cost Optimization
- Review raw material procurement across commissaries and stores to identify cost optimization opportunities.
- Establish standardized pricing and acceptable cost bands for key raw materials across cities.
- Benchmark procurement costs across locations and identify significant variances.
- Work closely with Procurement to improve vendor selection, negotiation, sourcing and supply reliability.
- Identify opportunities for local sourcing without compromising quality or consistency.
- Specifically evaluate and develop suitable alternatives to TWF for flour procurement, while maintaining product specifications and quality.
- Drive greater purchasing efficiency through standardization, vendor consolidation and volume leverage.

4. Production Efficiency & Yield
- Monitor production costs, yields, wastage and productivity across commissaries.
- Establish benchmarks for yield, wastage, labour productivity and production efficiency.
- Identify and address production losses and inefficiencies.
- Improve forecasting and production planning in partnership with Operations and Supply Chain.
- Ensure the right balance between centralized production and local production based on product, geography and economics.
- Build scalable capacity-planning models to support FoodStories' national expansion.

5. New Product Development & Innovation
- Work closely with Avni (Founder) and the Innovation team to operationalize new product launches.
- Translate product concepts and recipes into scalable production processes.
- Ensure new products are commercially viable and can be consistently produced across multiple commissaries.
- Establish standardized recipes, production methods, specifications, packaging and quality benchmarks before launch.
- Partner with Store Operations to ensure successful execution of new products at store level.
- Identify operational challenges early in the innovation process and provide practical solutions.

6. National Standardization
- Build a national operating framework for commissaries while accounting for relevant local requirements and supply realities.
- Ensure consistency in processes, recipes, raw materials and quality standards across cities.
- Create mechanisms for sharing best practices between commissaries.
- Lead cross-city operational reviews and benchmarking.
- Ensure that every new commissary is set up using standardized FoodStories processes and operating principles.

7. Food Safety & Compliance
- Strengthen food safety, hygiene, storage and handling practices across all commissaries.
- Establish and monitor food safety and quality-control standards.
- Ensure compliance with applicable food safety and statutory requirements.
- Conduct regular audits and ensure timely closure of identified gaps.
- Build a solid culture of food safety and operational discipline across commissary teams.

8.



Team & Capability Building
- Build and lead a strong commissary leadership team across locations.
- Define organizational structures, roles, responsibilities and performance metrics.
- Develop the capability of Commissary Heads, Production Managers and frontline teams.
- Establish clear performance expectations and review mechanisms.
- Build a culture of ownership, accountability and continuous improvement.

9. Business & Cross-functional Partnership
- Partner closely with Founder, Innovation, Procurement, Supply Chain, Finance and Store Operations.
- Provide regular visibility on commissary performance, quality, cost and capacity.
- Work with Finance to identify and deliver cost-saving opportunities.
- Partner with Operations to ensure commissaries consistently meet store requirements.
- Act as the central owner for resolving cross-functional issues affecting product quality, availability or cost.

Key Metrics / Success Measures The role will be measured on:
- Product quality and consistency across cities
- Commissary-level food cost and production cost
- Raw material cost optimization
- Yield and wastage
- Production efficiency and capacity utilization
- SOP adherence
- Food safety and audit scores
- Store-level product complaints and quality deviations
- New product launch execution
- Commissary service levels and dispatch accuracy
- Readiness of the commissary network to support national store expansion

We are specifically looking for someone with national / multi-city experience.

The ideal candidate would have:

- 10–15+ years of experience in food operations, preferably across QSR, restaurant chains, food retail, FMCG, central kitchens or food manufacturing.
- Proven experience managing multi-city / national commissary or central kitchen operations.
- Experience managing multiple commissaries or production facilities across different geographies.
- Strong understanding of food production, recipes, yields, quality control, procurement and food costs.
- Experience in building and implementing SOPs across a distributed network.
- Strong understanding of raw material sourcing, vendor management and cost optimization.
- Experience scaling central kitchens/commissaries alongside rapid store expansion.
- Strong exposure to new product commercialization and product launches.
- Demonstrated ability to standardize operations without losing flexibility required for local markets.
- Strong commercial orientation and understanding of the relationship between quality, cost and operational efficiency.
- Experience managing senior teams across multiple locations.
- Strong stakeholder-management skills, with the ability to work closely with founders and senior business leaders.

We would particularly value candidates who have:
- Managed a national QSR / restaurant / food-retail network
- Set up or scaled multiple central kitchens / commissaries
- Managed operations across 5+ cities
- Worked in organizations undergoing rapid geographic expansion
- Delivered measurable improvements in food cost, yield, wastage and product consistency
- Worked closely with Founders / CXOs on product and operational strategy

What Success Looks Like

Within the first 12–18 months, this person should help FoodStories build a nationally scalable commissary operating model where:

Every city produces consistently → at the right cost → with the right quality → using standardized processes → and with the capacity to support the next phase of store expansion.

This is a hands-on leadership role, not a purely corporate or strategy position. We are looking for someone who can operate at a national level while being close enough to the ground to identify what is actually happening inside each commissary.

📌 Head Commissary (Mumbai)
🏢 Foodstories
📍 Mumbai