Job Description
Thank you for your interest in the post of Food Warehouse Assistant.
HOW TO APPLY Please apply sending all docs to contactus@healthylivingplatform.org:
- either a covering letter or short 1 minute video explaining why you think you’d be great for the role
Please demonstrate how you meet the essential criteria in the person specification, and any of the desirable criteria. Applications will be accepted on a first come basis and interviews arranged accordingly.
Successful candidates will be required to provide 2 professional references and apply for an Enhanced Disclosure & Barring Check – organised and paid for by Healthy Living Platform – as part of our Safer Recruitment Processes.
Thank you for your interest in this exciting role - we look forward to receiving your application.
Purpose of the role:
The HLP Surplus Food Hub has been supporting communities through food in partnership with Lambeth Council since the pandemic. Working as part of a small, busy team you will receive daily deliveries of food from our surplus food partners and wholesale suppliers. Based at our small warehouse, you will help redistribute the food to over 35 community groups serving almost 2000 households weekly across the borough, in partnership with Lambeth Council.
You will interact daily with a range of community groups and HLP’s volunteer teams, understanding specific food needs and requirements and updating information as appropriate. Food will be redistributed either by collection from our Hub or delivering to their sites with our Hub vehicles.
You will be fit and healthy and ready for manual lifting of boxes, crates and sacks of food of up to 25kg with assistance from trolleys, pallet trucks and an electric pallet stacker (training will be provided).
You will work closely with the Food Distribution Supervisor helping to record food in and out and adapting to a busy changing schedule as requests come in. The hub team includes a small, diverse group of regular and changing volunteers.
Reports to: Community Food Manager
MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES
- Receiving deliveries from surplus food partners and other suppliers
- Ensuring food and products are stacked or stored safely and in accordance with food safety guidelines.
- Preparation of orders for distribution to community groups identified on a daily basis
- Recording food in and orders out as required, following training
- Adhering to health and safety standards especially in manual handling
- Delivering orders by Healthy Living Platform’s delivery vehicles
- Maintaining the delivery vehicle in good condition and reporting any problems immediately
- To carry out other reasonable tasks as requested by management within your capability
- Able to undertake reasonable travel and work beyond hours on occasion with notice.
ESSENTIAL SKILLS
- Clean Driving licence and willingness to drive our vehicles – manual van, electric milk float, electric ZipCar hire van or cargo bike
- Able and willing to handle heavy crates, boxes, sacks
- Ability to follow a map, learn routes, follow highway code and drive safely
- Willingness to drive a cargo bike or electric milk float
- Team worker, prepared to work in harmony with colleagues and share tasks
- Respect for others within a diverse team and client group
- A commitment to equality and diversity and anti-discriminatory practice
- Self-motivated, can work with minimal supervision
DESIRED SKILLS
- Good communication skills spoken and written
- A background in working with people from diverse communities and vulnerable groups.
- Empathy for the client group in accordance with HLP values
- An interest in the role that food plays in developing community cohesion and the health of its members.
Hours of work: 3-5 mornings/week and at least 2 longer days. Between 17.5h - 31h/week – flexible.
Contract: Fixed term for 3 months with potential to become permanent
Pay: London Living Wage, £21,550 (£11.95/hour)
Healthy Living Platform can provide an induction into our GDPR, Safeguarding, Code of Conduct, and Food Hygiene Policies.
CONDITIONS & BENEFITS
- Holiday entitlement: 20 days per year pro rata plus UK Bank Holidays.
- Automatic enrolment into workplace pension scheme
- We are a Disability Confident Employer
- We are an Equal Opportunities Employer and welcome applications from people of all backgrounds, particularly those under-represented in our organisation.
WHAT IS HEALTHY LIVING PLATFORM?
Healthy Living Platform is a Lambeth-based charity that brings communities together through food. At Healthy Living Platform we make it easier for local communities to lead healthier and more sustainable lives. Our focus is on connecting people through food across neighbourhoods and achieving changes that matter.
We do this by
- Creating proactive partnerships centred around food
- Working collaboratively and respectfully
- Developing and delivering community food-based activities that promote the physical and mental health benefits of eating nutritious food
- Engaging directly with people and communities
- Understanding the barriers communities may have in accessing healthy food.
We believe in creating initiatives collaboratively and putting community voice at the heart of all we do.
Healthy Living Platform was created out of the LEAP into Healthy Living project - a 10 year project funded by the lottery to improve outcomes for children and their families and specific areas of Lambeth. From its initial pilot phase its impact has grown substantially over 4 years. We now reach over 400 hundred families through our LEAP family activities. Since the pandemic, we have grown to deliver a number of other impactful community programmes across Lambeth, which support communities through food, healthier lifestyles, volunteering and employment opportunities.
Our Surplus Food Hub supports a minimum of 1500 households and 6000 individuals weekly through redistributing surplus food to community sites that have the knowledge to support their local communities.
Our Community Pantries are low cost food shops - operating 5 times a week, providing access to affordable healthy food for local communities and supporting up to 250 Lambeth households every week.
Our Healthy Living Kitchen seeks to support Lambeth residents by offering opportunities to cook together, a space for community groups, local food businesses, education and training. We are an ambitious new charity, always looking for opportunities to expand and develop initiatives within and beyond the borough.
We are keen to move forward and progress our new projects as well as ensuring the sustainability and reach of our existing ones.
You can find out more about us at www.healthylivingplatform.org and via our Instagram: @living_platform.
Job Types: Full-time, Part-time, Temporary contract, Fixed term contract, Temp to perm
Contract length: 3 months
Part-time hours: 17.5-31 per week
Salary: £11.95 per hour
Benefits:
- Casual dress
- Company pension
- Flexitime
- On-site parking
Schedule:
- Day shift
- Flexitime
- Monday to Friday
- No weekends
Licence/Certification:
- Driving Licence (required)
Work Location: In person