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Area Manager – Operations | Hubli-Dharwad Region
Company: K Star Food & Hospitality Services
Department: Operations
Location: Hubli-Dharwad, Karnataka
Employment Type: Full-time
Travel: Frequent travel across assigned sites in Karnataka and nearby locations
About the Role
K Star Food & Hospitality Services is looking for an experienced and ownership-driven Area Manager – Operations for the Hubli-Dharwad region.
We are specifically looking for candidates who have strong hands-on experience in Industrial Canteen Operations along with exposure to Educational Institutions / Hostel Mess / Campus Catering.
This is a multi-site, field-intensive leadership role. The selected candidate will be responsible for the complete operational and commercial performance of assigned sites, including manpower, P&L, food cost, client management, procurement consumption, hygiene, compliance, staff training and process implementation.
This is not an office-based coordination role. The Area Manager will be expected to visit sites frequently, identify operational gaps and take ownership until issues are fully resolved.
Key ResponsibilitiesMulti-Site Operations Management
- Take end-to-end responsibility for assigned industrial canteens and institutional catering sites.
- Ensure smooth daily operations across breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and shift-based meal services.
- Monitor food quality, service standards, hygiene, manpower, stores and client requirements.
- Conduct frequent site visits and operational audits.
- Identify recurring operational problems and implement corrective and preventive actions.
Industrial Canteen Operations
- Manage high-volume and shift-based industrial catering operations.
- Understand production planning based on shift timings and expected meal counts.
- Ensure timely meal availability for different employee shifts.
- Monitor service speed, counter management and peak-hour execution.
- Control portion sizes, wastage and food cost.
- Coordinate with factory/client representatives regarding meal schedules, employee feedback and operational requirements.
- Ensure compliance with factory-specific safety, hygiene and access requirements.
Education / Institutional Catering
- Manage hostel mess, college, university or campus dining operations.
- Handle changing meal counts, student feedback and menu-related concerns.
- Ensure consistency of food quality across all meals.
- Coordinate with institutional administration, hostel teams, mess committees and other stakeholders.
- Support special meals, events and high-volume service requirements where applicable.
Manpower Management
- Ensure availability of adequate manpower at each site including Unit Managers, Supervisors, Chefs, Cooks, Storekeepers, Helpers, Utility and Service staff.
- Review manpower deployment against meal volume, service pattern and operational requirement.
- Coordinate recruitment and replacement requirements with HR.
- Manage absenteeism, attrition, weekly offs and shift deployment.
- Identify weak performers and initiate training, counselling or replacement as required.
- Develop capable second-line teams at every site.
P&L and Cost Control
Take direct responsibility for site profitability.
Monitor and control:
- Raw-material / food cost
- Manpower cost
- Purchase consumption
- Inventory
- Wastage
- Local purchases
- Petty cash
- Operating expenses
- Client penalties and deductions
The Area Manager should be able to identify why a site is underperforming and implement practical corrective actions.
Procurement & Inventory Control
- Review procurement quantities against meal count, menu, stock and consumption trends.
- Identify abnormal consumption, excess buying and repeated emergency purchases.
- Review high-value and fast-moving items.
- Monitor stock levels, FIFO/FEFO, wastage, variance and physical stock.
- Work with Purchase and site teams to ensure timely availability of materials without overstocking.
- Monitor vendor service quality, delivery performance and rejection/replacement issues.
Client Management
- Maintain strong working relationships with industrial and institutional clients.
- Meet client representatives during site visits.
- Resolve operational complaints within committed timelines.
- Identify recurring complaints and implement root-cause corrective action.
- Escalate major commercial, contractual or compliance matters appropriately.
- Ensure that client satisfaction is maintained without creating uncontrolled cost or manpower commitments.
Training & Process Implementation
- Train Unit Managers, Supervisors, Chefs and Storekeepers.
- Implement standard processes for:
- Menu and production planning
- Indenting
- Stores and inventory
- Receiving
- Portion control
- Wastage control
- Attendance
- Cleaning and hygiene
- Client complaint handling
- Daily MIS
- Audit and CAPA
- Ensure processes continue to function consistently after implementation.
Hygiene, Food Safety & Compliance
- Ensure compliance with applicable FSSAI, hygiene and client requirements.
- Monitor kitchen and dining-area cleanliness.
- Ensure pest-control, cleaning, temperature, sample-retention and related records are maintained.
- Ensure staff grooming, medical fitness and food-safety practices are followed.
- Coordinate closure of audit and compliance observations.
Candidate ProfileExperience
- 8–15 years of experience in institutional catering / contract food services / large-scale food operations.
- Mandatory: Strong experience in Industrial Canteen Operations.
- Mandatory: Experience in Educational Institutions, Hostel Mess, College or University Catering.
- Prior experience managing multiple sites simultaneously is strongly preferred.
- Experience handling large manpower teams, client relationships, food cost and site P&L is essential.
Candidates having experience only in hotels, standalone restaurants, QSRs or banquet operations without contract catering / industrial canteen exposure may not be suitable for this role.
Education
Degree or Diploma in Hotel Management, Hospitality, Food Production, Business Administration or a related field preferred.
Strong candidates with extensive hands-on contract catering experience may also be considered.
Required Skills
- Industrial canteen operations
- Institutional / education-sector catering
- Multi-site management
- P&L ownership
- Food-cost and consumption control
- Manpower planning
- Inventory and store management
- Client handling
- Vendor coordination
- Staff training
- Process implementation
- Root-cause analysis
- Hygiene and compliance
- Excel / Google Sheets and operational MIS
- Good communication in English and Hindi
- Knowledge of Kannada is must.
What We Are Looking For
We need someone who:
- Takes complete ownership of assigned sites.
- Is comfortable spending significant time at operating locations.
- Understands both industrial and educational catering environments.
- Can manage high-volume and shift-based food operations.
- Understands numbers, P&L and food cost.
- Can identify cost leakages and operational inefficiencies.
- Can manage and develop Unit Managers and site teams.
- Does not depend only on phone calls or WhatsApp to manage operations.
- Is comfortable handling manpower shortages and operational emergencies.
- Identifies problems before they become client escalations.
- Implements systems and follows through until they become routine.
Key Performance Areas
Performance will be measured on:
- Site P&L and profitability
- Food-cost control
- Manpower productivity
- Client satisfaction
- Complaint closure
- Audit and compliance scores
- Inventory and wastage control
- Staff availability and retention
- Process compliance
- MIS accuracy
- Stability of assigned sites
Important Eligibility Requirement
Candidates should apply only if they have meaningful hands-on experience in both Industrial Canteen Operations and Education / Institutional Catering.
Candidates whose experience is limited to hotels, restaurants, banquet operations or a single standalone unit may not be suitable for this position.
How to Apply
Send your updated resume to hiring@kstarhospitality.com with the subject:
Application – Area Manager Operations – Hubli-Dharwad – [Candidate Name]
Please mention:
- Current location
- Current CTC
- Expected CTC
- Notice period
- Total years of catering operations experience
- Years of Industrial Canteen experience
- Years of Education / Institutional Catering experience
- Number of sites handled simultaneously
- Approximate manpower handled
- Experience in site P&L and food-cost control
- Major clients / industries handled
- Languages known
- Willingness to relocate / travel within Karnataka
Click on Apply to know more.
