General Manager - Fruit Farm, Farm Shop & Cafe

• Exciting newly created position to run award winning fruit farm, tea barn and farm shop business.
• A hands-on opportunity to influence and shape the future strategy and growth.
• Based in beautiful countryside near Bishops Stortford.
• Salary: from £45,000 salary per annum

Cammas Hall is recruiting for an experienced General Manager of the highest calibre to lead a team in delivering an exceptional experience for customers and to run a range of food and retail operations across the business including a number of significant events in the year.

This role is a rewarding one, in an independent business, with a personal and supportive management team, providing a good work-life balance, in a fantastic environment with great customers and ever developing opportunities.  If you want to find out more about the role and want to be involved in an influential and very rewarding senior management role, send your CV in today!

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Following a successful 2021, Cammas Hall continues to develop its events, Farm Shop and Tea Barn cafe.  The farm shop and tea barn café creates a location and environment for visitors to shop, indulge, visit, enjoy and relax.  As we grow and develop we are looking to build a infrastructure within the team to be part of our journey.  We are therefore looking to recruit an experienced General Manager with a strong commercial background, who is capable of running the shop and tea barn as if it were their own.  Delivering on the job description, the role will suit someone who wants to play a major part of the farms development, growth and strategy as part of the senior management team.  This is no ordinary farm shop role, we are looking for someone who ticks all the boxes, with a real passion and drive, with the opportunity to inject their own personality.

The General Manager will lead a team to help them make sure that every part of the farm shop and tea barn offers its customers a great retail experience. They will also take ownership of the events operational team, working alongside the Events Coordinator to deliver day to day running of the event.

With the aim of boosting sales and profit, the General Manager, working alongside the owner and senior management team, will also be accountable for the farm shop and tea barn’s budgets.  They also oversee staff recruitment, training and performance for all of their team.

It will be important for the farm team to work together to maximise sales and control costs to enable it to establish itself efficiently, with the General Manager being a core driver of this.  Strong leadership,  communication, teamwork and sharing responsibility will be essential to make this work for the farm shop.  Seasonal working patterns will be required for this role as agreed with the owners.

Main Purpose of Job

Working as the General Manager, this role will be fully responsible for all aspects of the day to day running of the farm shop, café, outside cafes and on the day event operations. The role will be accountable for ensuring that all processes are in place to effectively run the farm shop, café and events, including operational management of retailing, health and safety, hygiene and staff management.   It also enables the successful applicant to be heavily involved in strategic progress as the farm shop and cafe develops.

Key Responsibilities:

Financial Performance: 

• Supports owners and senior management team in building budgets and targets.
• Drives sales to achieve budgets and targets. 
• Takes ownership and responsibility for managing all areas of profit, loss and controllable costs within all areas of the farm shop and catering areas.
• Implement appropriate measures to control costs.
• Manage payroll costs effectively and flexibly by monitoring wage costs vs turnover on a weekly basis to achieve farm shop budget payroll.
• Is responsible for buying, pricing and selection of the range throughout the farm shop.
• Controls stock levels effectively throughout the farm shop and tea barn café to maximise sales whilst managing wastage costs in line with expected gross margin targets.
• Ensures that correct margins are implemented and maintained
• Responsible for cash management and banking procedures throughout the farm shop and tea barn.

Leading a Team:

• Leads by example and promotes effective team working throughout the farm shop, tea barn, events team and farm.
• Inspires, motivates, and develops the team to optimise individual performance and provide succession planning for the business.
• Demonstrate an enthusiastic, proactive and flexible approach motivating team ownership and care.
• Ensures performance and attendance issues are managed fairly and consistently in line with HR guidelines.
• Communicates with the team effectively through regular meetings. 
• Ensures all colleagues are trained on all processes and procedures relevant to their job role to support service, standards and health and safety.
• Holds annual staff appraisals.

Operations:

• Controls the retail and catering back of house and front of house operational standards throughout.

• Ensures stock processes are in place to maintain margin expectations.

• Communicates effectively throughout the  farm shop, catering and events staff.

• Communicates information regarding compliance effectively as required.
• Leads management projects and strategies where relevant.
• Carries out any other duties that may be outside the standard remit, which will benefit the individual, or the farm.
• Responsible for issuing and managing key holding duties, including themselves.
• Undertakes appropriate training/coaching deemed relevant for the role (eg.  IOSH, Hygiene Training).
• Demonstrating Cammas Hall brand values.

Customer Experience:

• Leads from the front in driving the highest standard of customer service to ensure it is consistently achieved.
• Review customer experience given by the team and provide ongoing training and coaching.
• Resolves customer complaints effectively and in a timely manner.
• Provide relevant training and support to colleagues to inspire them to achieve targets and deliver an excellent customer service experience, including for continuous improvements.
• Ensure staff schedules/rotas fall in line with sales trends to achieve targets and maintain excellent customer service.

Health, Safety, Hygiene and Compliance:

• Over aching responsibility as a ‘competent person’ for all of the health and safety within the farm shop and catering areas, including managing and monitoring compliance to Health & Safety Legislation, Policy and Procedures throughout the farm shop, tea barn and events areas.  Training may be required.
• Responsible for reviewing the compliance for Health and Safety assessments and EHO regulations.
• Ensure risk assessments are completed and records are kept up-to-date annually.

• Ensure that team members have full understanding of their role in health and safety, the Health and Safety at Work Act and procedures and ensure that any changes to practices are fully communicated.
• Ensure training plan is in place to manage health and safety on site, including staff training.
• Ensure the accidents are logged and that preventative measures are actioned as required.
• Controls visitor and contractor health and safety compliance.

Candidate Profile and Experience:

• Lead from the front and inspire the team
• Is aware of seasonal needs for the farm shop, tea barn and events
• Set the standard for service across all departments
• Commercially aware to drive and make changes to increase sales
• Manage a multi-site format in a retail and catering environment
• Demonstrate success from a multi format retail environment
• Full responsibility for achieving targets and results
• Create and maintain an outstanding shopping and visitor experience for customers
• Develop your team and have succession plans in place for colleagues and managers
• Operationally strong to manage in a diverse and fast paced store role
• Able to direct the team to achieve farm shop and tea barn KPI's
• Ensure high Visual standards at all times throughout the farm shop and catering areas
• IT literate, with capability to use EPOS systems to maximise their effectiveness
• Experience in all legislative and business standards and procedures e.g. licensing law, health and safety and cash management knowledge plus the administration required to ensure compliance.
• Fully accountable for processes, compliance, management and overhead control, including ordering, pricing, cash management, HR and health & safety.

If you have any further questions about this role please email helen@cammashall.co.uk