Head – Commissary Production | Central Kitchen & Food Manufacturing

Build the production backbone of one of India’s emerging Punjabi QSR brands

Kulcha Patola is looking for a Head of Commissary Production to lead and scale our central production facility in Mohali.

This is not a conventional chef role, and it is not a role limited to managing daily kitchen output.

We are looking for a hands-on production leader who can transform our commissary into a highly disciplined, data-driven and scalable food-production system supporting multiple outlets, new formats and future expansion.

Kulcha Patola is building a modern, chef-less Punjabi QSR model powered by centralised production, standardised recipes, controlled finishing and strong operating systems. As we enter our next phase of growth, the commissary will be the backbone of the company.

The person joining us will have the opportunity to build that backbone alongside the founders.

What you will own

You will take end-to-end responsibility for commissary production, including:

• Translating outlet demand and sales forecasts into daily and weekly production plans
• Managing batch production, manpower deployment, line capacity and dispatch schedules
• Ensuring recipe, BOM, yield and portion consistency across every production batch
• Improving food cost, productivity, recovery and wastage control
• Building strong production MIS, dashboards and performance-review systems
• Standardising processes for gravies, fillings, proteins, breads, chutneys, premixes and frozen products
• Managing blast chilling, blast freezing, cold-room storage, thawing and cold-chain controls
• Ensuring complete batch traceability, shelf-life control, FIFO/FEFO and documentation
• Maintaining high standards of hygiene, food safety, FSSAI compliance and audit readiness
• Working closely with product development and outlet operations to industrialise new products
• Planning preventive maintenance and ensuring reliability of production equipment
• Building, training and managing the next layer of production supervisors and team leaders
• Continuously improving the commissary layout, process flow, capacity and cost structure

Who we are looking for

You may be a strong fit if you have:

• 7+ years of experience in a central kitchen, QSR commissary, food-manufacturing unit, frozen-food facility, cloud-kitchen network or ready-to-eat/ready-to-cook operation
• Experience supplying multiple outlets or institutional customers from a central production facility
• Strong knowledge of batch production, yield management, production planning and quality control
• Practical understanding of blast chilling, freezing, cold rooms, shelf life and temperature-controlled logistics
• Experience implementing SOPs, production records, traceability and food-safety systems
• The ability to manage both people on the floor and numbers on a dashboard
• A hands-on operating mindset—you are comfortable solving problems inside the production facility, not only reviewing reports
• The ambition to build systems and capacity rather than merely maintain an existing operation

Experience with HACCP, ISO 22000, large QSR brands, frozen foods or multi-location food operations will be an advantage.

What makes this opportunity different

You will not inherit a narrow job description.

You will work directly with the founders and have meaningful influence over:

• The future production architecture of the company
• Commissary expansion and capacity planning
• Product industrialisation
• Equipment and process design
• Food cost and supply-chain economics
• Quality systems
• Team structure
• The operating model that supports Kulcha Patola’s next phase of expansion

We are looking for someone who wants to say:

“I helped build this production system from the ground up.”

Location: Patiala, Punjab

Role: Full-time, on-site

Compensation: Competitive and aligned with experience, capability and ownership

To apply, send your CV along with a brief note covering the scale of production, team size and type of facility you have previously managed to [email protected], or message me directly on LinkedIn.

Please share this with strong production leaders from the QSR, central-kitchen, frozen-food and food-manufacturing ecosystem.