Food & Community Officer

This exciting role links our 350+ community organisations that receive food from us — known as our Community Food Members (CFMs) — with our thriving and fast-paced food operation. As the Food & Membership Operations Coordinator, you will work across the charity with the Food, Membership and Warehouse Teams, as well as our large and diverse volunteer community, to ensure CFM organisations receive a smooth, reliable and high-quality service each week.

The purpose of this role is to strengthen the connection between food supply, warehouse capacity and member demand. Acting as a key cross-functional coordinator, you will help ensure that surplus food flows efficiently into the organisation and out to the communities who need it. You will support both food-sourcing and membership functions, helping resolve issues quickly, improving communication, maintaining accurate data, and ensuring operational plans are aligned across teams.

Reporting to the Food Manager, with a dotted line to the Membership Manager, this role is central to improving collaboration across the organisation and ensuring FareShare South West delivers a safe, efficient and impactful service to frontline community organisations across the region.

1) Cross-Functional Coordination

• Support daily and weekly communication between Food, Membership and Operations regarding supply and membership demand.
• Maintain awareness of the food pipeline, providing timely updates on incoming supply, changes, restraints, gluts or shortages.
• Assist the Food Manager and Membership Managers with aligning food allocation planning to member needs, operational realities and transport schedules.
• Help coordinate solutions to operational challenges (e.g., quality issues, storage constraints, cancellations, short-dated stock).

2) Food Sourcing Support

• Support the Food Manager with local food sourcing activity, particularly in administration, supplier updates and basic relationship maintenance.
• Be a point of contact for day-to-day supplier communication, ensuring timely responses and accurate information flow.
• Help maintain accurate sourcing records and documentation, including volumes, quality notes and engagement history.
• Support awareness-raising activities about FSSW’s surplus redistribution capability (e.g., events, promotional updates).
• Assist with capturing local supply opportunities and best practice shared through the FareShare Network and escalating them to the Food Manager.
• Help coordinate truck logistics schedules in partnership with Operations ensuring incoming food is aligned with capacity.
• Assist with food safety and compliance tasks related to local sourcing (e.g., documentation updates, supplier follow-up, recall administration) under direction from the Food Manager.

3) Member Support & Service Delivery

• Support member onboarding, offboarding, account updates, queries, complaints and general membership administration.
• Lead on resolving daily member-facing issues, including food quality concerns and product recalls, escalating where appropriate.
• Support food allocation writing, ensuring allocations reflect supply, need and warehouse capacity.
• Maintain accurate and up-to-date member information, including delivery instructions, profiles and seasonal variations.
• Support membership-related campaigns, events and targeted projects (e.g., HAF, bolt-on models, piloted services).
• Communicate supply changes, special offers and gluts/shortages clearly to members in coordination with relevant teams.

4) Data, CRM & Reporting

• Maintain accurate member records in Salesforce and ensure data integrity across systems.
• Support reporting for funders, SLT and internal operational updates, including supply, allocations, member engagement and service metrics.
• Track and summarise recurring issues (e.g., cancellations, quality problems, demand spikes) to support decision-making.
• Contribute to KPI monitoring across both Membership and Food functions.

5) Compliance, Food Safety & Member Standards

• Operate in accordance with the FareShare Food Safety Manual and maintain required training.
• Support documentation for community food member (CFM) compliance, including kitchen checks, food safety standards and follow-up actions.
• Conduct in-person compliance visits with member organisations as required.
• Provide administrative support for product recalls, safety notices and compliance-related communication.

Person Specification
Essential Criteria

• Experience or knowledge working in an operational, coordination or customer/member support role.
• Strong organisational and problem-solving skills, with the ability to prioritise effectively in a fast-paced environment.
• Confidence working with data and digital systems.
• Excellent communication and relationship-building skills, able to coordinate across teams and externally.

Desirable

• Experience in food sourcing, logistics, warehousing or surplus food redistribution, or an understanding of how food supply chains operate.
• Knowledge of food safety, warehouse processes or compliance requirements, or a willingness to develop this expertise.
• Experience using Salesforce, or similar CRM systems, with confidence managing data integrity and reporting.
• Experience working in a charity, community food environment or membership-based service.
• Ability to build strong working relationships across internal teams and with external partners, suppliers or community groups.
• Comfortable representing an organisation externally.
• Experience supporting projects or campaigns, including administration, coordination and communication tasks.
• Attention to detail in compliance-related work.