Tropical Marine Centre Ltd
AQUATIC LIVEFOODS DEVELOPMENT LEAD
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Job Description: Livefoods Lead
Location: TMC Chorleywood, Hertfordshire (WD3 5SX) — on-site
Department: Product Development / Livestock
Salary: Depending on experience · Pension, holiday, on-site parking
Contract: Full-time, on-site
Own one of the UK's most ambitious ornamental livefoods operations
Tropical Marine Centre has supplied the aquatic trade for over 56 years. Our Chorleywood fish house is one of the most advanced facilities of its kind in Europe, and Gamma livefoods is an area we're investing in heavily — because getting artemia, copepods, mysis and bloodworm right is a critical stepping stone to giving livestock the best possible care, for TMC, for our customers, and for the hobbyist at home.
We're looking for someone to take that operation and run it — to develop the programme and take it to its next chapter. You'll sit at the intersection of husbandry, operations, logistics and product development, building the livefoods capability the ornamental trade needs next. TMC works closely with academic and industry partners, so you'll be representing this function externally as well as running it internally.
This role offers the opportunity to be directly involved in building and delivering the aquatic industry next-generation livefoods capabilities—supporting both the production and distribution of livefoods for marine and freshwater livestock. The successful candidate will work at the intersection of operations, logistics, and product development, playing a pivotal role in protocol development, quality control, and hands-on execution.
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What you'll own
- The culture systems. Yield, quality, consistency and welfare across the full range — you set the standards, hold them, and keep the systems, water quality and animal health where they need to be.
- The protocols. Existing methods are a starting point. You'll refine what works, retire what doesn't, and document it properly so it scales — procedures, parameters, deliveries and performance data.
- New species and new lines. We want to expand the range, including into adjacent sectors. You'll lead the trials that decide what reaches production.
- The numbers and the traceability. Production planning, yield data, and the records that let us scale with confidence.
- Getting it there. Packing protocols and operation and close work with sales to ensure safe, timely delivery of livefoods across TMC sites and to trade customers.
- The function. You are TMC's livefoods expert — the person livestock, product development and logistics come to. You'll be embedded in the livestock team's weekly routines and feeding regimes, with the wider fish house team there when you need hands. The direction is yours.
What you'll be given
- A purpose-built facility, and a budget to improve it.
- Real decision rights — you won't be asking permission to change a culture protocol.
- Access to our livestock and product development teams, plus TMC's academic and industry partners.
- Investment in the areas that need it, argued for by you and signed off quickly.
- A route to building your own team. As livefoods scales, the headcount follows — and we promote from the inside.
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Essential
- Hands-on experience in livefoods, aquaculture or aquatic lab production — and you know the difference between a culture crash you can explain and one you can't.
- Comfortable being the person who decides, then owns the outcome.
- You keep records because you want the data, not because someone asked.
- Strong communicator across internal teams and external partners.
- Happy on-site full-time, on your feet, around water and live animals daily — including shift cover in the fish house.
Desirable
- Familiarity across the ornamental livefoods range (copepods, tubifex, daphnia, bloodworm and others).
- Protocol development, breeding, or system optimisation in a lab or commercial setting.
- Working knowledge of aquarium systems and environmental controls, marine and freshwater.
How to apply
Send your CV and a short covering note to careers@tropicalmarinecentre.co.uk, subject line: Livefoods Lead – [Your name]. Tell us about one production problem you solved that nobody else had cracked.
Job Types: Full-time, Temp to perm
Benefits:
- Casual dress
- Company pension
- Cycle to work scheme
- Free parking
- Health & wellbeing programme
- Store discount
Application question(s):
- Please confirm you have experience working with livefoods or aquatics in a production, lab or aquaculture setting.
Work Location: In person
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