On a senior culinary chef apprenticeship course, you’ll help act as the culinary inspiration and leader in developing new recipes, dishes and menus.
A senior culinary chef is in charge of developing new recipes, dishes, and menus. As an apprentice, you will learn how to research, ethically acquire things, produce, and sell them to meet specifications. In addition, you’ll maintain excellent culinary standards by overseeing all meal preparation and presentation to ensure quality and consistency.
To ensure a safe and hygienic kitchen, you will order and monitor food and supply stocks for intended meals and menus and maintain compliance and due diligence papers inside the food safety management system.
You will be expected to work with food and equipment suppliers, create recipes from scratch or a brief, determine the best way to present/package food, and maintain or increase food profit margins.
As a result, whether as the culinary inspiration of a sole-trader patron driving the team to introduce new menus or dishes or as the head of a team of culinary chefs producing items for centralised distribution, there is a significant leadership component to this career.
What you’ll learn
On a senior culinary chef apprenticeship course, you’ll learn to:
- Utilise a range of food preparation, knife, and culinary skills and procedures to provide delicious meals in compliance with company requirements.
- Utilise technology to assist food production appropriately and effectively, and ensure that maintenance issues and malfunctions are resolved as soon as possible.
- Assist the team in coping with unexpected failures or dangers that restrict work performance.
- Maintain a positive corporate or brand image at all times, including during job activities and product delivery.
- Accept responsibility for adequately storing, preparing, cooking, and presenting components to produce a high-quality product suited for immediate consumption or centralised distribution.
- Manage oneself and others to ensure that the food produced is high quality, delivered on time, and meets standards.
- Determine skill development needs and actively promote and assist others and oneself in developing one’s abilities and knowledge.
- Monitor spending, using forecasting to create realistic team objectives; effectively control resource allocation; minimise waste, and use environmentally friendly working techniques.
- Comply with all relevant legal requirements, and safeguard people’s safety and security.
- Apply business and brand values that actively promote the firm, foster competition, and help achieve corporate objectives.
- Execute supply chain processes, rules, and procedures inside an organisation, such as procurement, traceability, origin, and quality monitoring.
Entry requirements
You’ll usually need:
- Depending on the employer, likely A-levels, equivalent qualifications, or relevant experience.
- Apprentices without level 2 English and maths will need to achieve this before taking the end-point assessment.
Assessment methods
The End Point Assessment comprises two distinct assessment methods:
- Project with a presentation, practical assessment and questioning
- Professional Discussion, underpinned by a portfolio
Duration, level, subjects and potential salary upon completion
- Duration: 24 months
-
Level: 4 – Higher Apprenticeship
- Relevant school subjects: Food technology and business studies
- Potential salary upon completion: £28,000
Apprenticeship standard
More information about the Level 4 Senior Culinary Chef Apprenticeship standard can be found here.
Apprenticeship end point assessment
For more information about the End Point Assessment Process, please read the Institute of Apprenticeships’ information page