VP Operations - Specialty Foods

Keller Executive Search is seeking a senior operations executive on behalf of an established premium food retailer and food service operator. The business brings together specialty grocery, fresh departments, scratch culinary production, bakery and pastry operations, purchasing, catering, and off‑site food service. Its customers expect consistently high standards of freshness, quality, convenience, and service.

This is a broader mandate than conventional store management. The successful executive will progressively assume responsibility for company‑wide day‑to‑day operations and financial performance, integrating people, production, purchasing, service, safety, and commercial outcomes.

The opportunity suits a proven food operator ready to take genuine enterprise accountability. The mandate is to strengthen operating discipline, improve margins and profitability and develop the leadership structure. Success will require hands‑on credibility, rigorous P&L leadership, and the judgment to improve performance without compromising food quality, safety, or the premium customer experience.

• Assume day-to-day operational and financial leadership
• Integrate operations across scratch food production, bakery and pastry, fresh retail departments, catering, and off‑site food service
• Own budgeting, P&L performance, forecasting, variance reviews, and departmental financial reporting
• Improve recipe costing, food cost, yields, waste, shrink, purchasing discipline, and operating profitability
• Establish production plans, operating rhythms, performance measures, and clear accountability across departments
• Lead approximately direct reports and a wider workforce of employees through managers and department heads
• Align labor planning and scheduling with sales, service requirements, and production volume
• Oversee supplier strategy, ordering practices, inventory levels, vendor terms, and purchasing negotiations

• Maintain effective food safety, quality‑control, escalation, and corrective‑action processes
• Protect house‑made quality and the premium customer experience while improving margins
• Assess the management structure after learning the business and recommend appropriate roles, reporting lines, and decision rights
• Develop capital‑expenditure priorities for production, kitchen, bakery, and retail operations
• Provide ownership with clear performance reporting, timely escalation, and evidence‑based recommendations

• Permanent executive appointment
• Fully onsite in Rochester Hills, Michigan
• Approximately 10% travel

• Senior cross‑functional operations leadership in prepared foods, specialty grocery, food service, catering, commercial bakery, commissary, or a comparable food environment
• Direct responsibility for food preparation or production, food costs, ordering, purchasing, yields, and waste control
• Manager‑of‑managers experience leading department heads or senior managers across a substantial workforce
• Broad decision‑making authority and accountability for operational results beyond a single department or advisory function
• Meaningful P&L, budgeting, forecasting, and departmental margin‑management experience
• Track record of improving food cost, labor productivity, margins, or profitability
• Experience managing labor planning and productivity in a complex, labor‑intensive operation
• Working knowledge of food safety, quality controls, issue escalation, and corrective action
• Ability to learn a complex operation, earn stakeholder confidence, and progressively assume operating authority

• Leadership experience in premium or specialty grocery with substantial prepared‑food operations
• Depth in scratch kitchens, commissaries, central production, or large culinary programs
• Oversight of bakery, pastry, fresh…