Arriva Group
Head of Catering Strategy
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Head of Catering Strategy
Location: Birmingham / Hybrid
Closing date: 26 September 2026
Lead the future of catering at CrossCountry
This is an exciting opportunity to shape and lead the catering strategy for CrossCountry, one of the UK’s largest long-distance rail operators.
As Head of Catering Strategy, you’ll have strategic ownership of our catering proposition, balancing an outstanding customer experience with commercial performance, operational excellence, food safety, and continuous innovation.
You’ll play a key role in shaping what our customers experience on board — from product and service standards through to technology, suppliers, logistics, and the way our teams deliver catering every day.
This is a high-profile leadership role for someone who combines strong commercial thinking with customer focus, operational expertise, and a passion for innovation.
What you’ll be responsible for
- Set the strategy: Own and deliver CrossCountry’s catering strategy, translating customer, commercial, and operational priorities into a clear annual plan with measurable objectives and outcomes.
- Drive commercial performance: Take accountability for catering budgets, financial performance, and margin control, delivering agreed revenue, cost, margin, and waste targets through effective governance, forecasting, and performance management.
- Champion food safety: Act as CrossCountry’s Professional Head of Food Safety, ensuring our policies, controls, and assurance processes meet all legal, Environmental Health Officer (EHO), and company requirements. You’ll oversee audits, inspections, incident reporting, and action plans to maintain the highest standards.
- Lead and inspire: Set clear expectations for the catering team, build capability, and create a high-performance culture focused on customer service, safety, commercial results, and colleague engagement.
- Innovate and improve: Identify, test, and implement new propositions, processes, and technologies that enhance the customer experience, improve productivity, reduce costs, or increase sales. You’ll ensure the benefits of innovation are clearly measured and delivered.
- Build strong partnerships: Develop strategic supplier relationships that deliver quality, resilience, innovation, and value, holding partners to account against agreed service levels, costs, availability, compliance, and continuous improvement.
- Elevate service standards: Develop and continually improve practical, customer-focused service standards and procedures for our on-board colleagues, supported by effective training, compliance monitoring, and operational feedback.
- Shape the customer proposition: Use customer insight, feedback, commercial data, and market trends to continually evolve our product range, improving sales, revenue, margins, availability, waste, and overall customer value.
- Enable operational excellence: Provide effective logistical and operational support through the management of our Birmingham and Regional Service Centres, ensuring continuity of supply, strong stock availability, and prompt resolution of operational issues.
- Build positive employee relations: Work constructively with trade union representatives, including the RMT, ensuring proposed changes are appropriately planned, communicated, and consulted on, with successful implementation and effective issue resolution.
- Maximise technology and data: Oversee the development and continuous improvement of catering systems, including NOVO, ensuring technology delivers better data, stronger process compliance, improved reporting, and greater efficiency.
- Influence at senior level: Work closely with the Customer and Commercial Director and wider leadership team, taking on additional responsibilities appropriate to the seniority and strategic scope of the role.
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What you’ll bring
We’re looking for an experienced strategic leader who can combine commercial performance, customer experience, operational delivery, and safety to create a catering proposition that makes a real difference.
Essential experience and skills
- Proven strategic leadership capability, with the ability to set direction, prioritize effectively, and turn business objectives into practical delivery plans.
- Strong commercial acumen, including experience of budget ownership, financial control, forecasting, and performance management.
- Excellent problem-solving skills, with the ability to interpret complex data, identify root causes, and develop creative, evidence-based solutions.
- A track record of challenging established ways of working, leading change, and delivering measurable improvements to customer experience, operational efficiency, and business performance.
- Experience within a customer-focused environment and a genuine commitment to understanding and responding to customer needs.
- Strong people leadership skills, with the ability to engage colleagues, develop capability, set expectations, and hold teams and partners to account.
- Sound knowledge of relevant statutory legislation, particularly food safety and associated compliance requirements.
- Excellent communication and influencing skills, with the confidence to present to senior audiences and build effective relationships across internal and external stakeholder groups.
- Proven experience of working successfully with suppliers, trade union representatives, and cross-functional teams.
- Strong negotiation skills, with the ability to balance commercial, operational, safety, and colleague considerations.
- Basic and Intermediate Food Hygiene Certificate would be advantageous.
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Desirable experience
- Experience managing a retail profit and loss account, including retail controls, margin management, and commercial performance improvement.
- Experience leading transformation, proposition development, or technology-enabled improvement in a customer-facing environment.
- A professional qualification in food safety, retail, procurement, commercial management, or a related discipline.
Why join CrossCountry?
At CrossCountry, you’ll have the opportunity to make a real difference to the experience of our passengers and the communities we connect.
This role gives you the opportunity to influence a high-profile customer proposition, lead meaningful change, and bring new ideas to life across our network. Your expertise will help us deliver catering that is safe, commercially successful, operationally effective, and genuinely valued by our customers.
You’ll be joining a team that is passionate about delivering a better experience for passengers and creating a workplace where everyone can belong.
We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds, identities, and experiences, including women, people from ethnic minority / global majority backgrounds, people with disabilities, neurodivergent people, LGBTQ+ colleagues, and those with caring responsibilities.
We believe that inclusion drives innovation. We’re committed to building a culture where everyone can thrive, contribute their ideas, and reach their full potential.
If you’re ready to shape the future of catering at CrossCountry, we’d love to hear from you.
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