Project Engineer

You will be supporting the project engineering team to deliver improvements to equipment and operations. You will be working on a variety of projects that add value to the business and can make huge difference in every aspect of it, being given responsibility to drive business improvement.

You will predominantly be working on leading and managing Capital Expenditure projects, such as introducing or upgrading equipment on site, building alterations and M&E projects. As well as this, you will be involved in energy saving and other sustainability biased projects.

This role involves a balance of spending time in the factory – speaking to the team and evaluating current operations, as well as working in the office - holding discussions across departments, developing project specifications and business cases.

For this role, you will have experience of leading food or pharmaceutical biased projects from conception to completion, including scoping with data analysis, project and financial management, equipment specification, installation and commissioning. You will interact with teams from across the business including Health & Safety, Manufacturing, Distribution and Technical. There is excellent further personal development potential, in order to grow your career as the company grows.

apetito is the UK’s leading food supplier to the health and social care sectors serving more than 1,300 care homes, health care and education settings.

Our meals are expertly crafted by our dieticians and chefs, and then frozen to lock in the goodness.

Wiltshire Farm Foods, our sister company, is the UK’s largest ready meal supplier cooking and delivering over 330 different delicious frozen ready meals across the UK.

Reporting to the Project Engineering Manager, you will be responsible for:

• Delivering a variety of simultaneous Capital projects at our Trowbridge manufacturing site, to improve safety, costs, quality, environmental impact and production capability of the site.
• Act as figurehead and single point of contact for day to day management and delivery of your projects on time and to budget at the right quality.
• Work with the Business Sponsor and key stakeholders to define the scope and objectives of the projects and secure approval
• Planning and coordinating all activities required to deliver the different phases including:
  • Day to day Supplier Management and liaison
  • All Procurement activity including overseeing the Tender Process and Contract Award
  • Appropriate Business Engagement to ensure quality, timely input into the design and build readiness for the change
  • Managing stakeholders both internally and externally
  • Ensuring that all activities required are resourced appropriately
  • Managing any dependencies and interdependencies with other projects or BAU work
  • Managing the scope and change control process, escalating significant cost/scope changes for Approval to Sponsor
  • Ensure that appropriate Governance is implemented to ensure controls for the Project (eg meetings, reporting, plans, logs)
  • Manage Risks, Issues, Assumptions and Dependencies (and interdependencies with other Project's or BAU), escalating when required
  • Ensure that necessary maintenance information is provided to the onsite maintenance team to keep new plant and equipment reliable, safe, efficient and legally compliant.
• Introduce new technologies for competitive advantage, including robotics/automation and potentially artificial intelligence-based systems.
• Collaborating with other teams in delivering world class business plans and objectives, including safety, quality, cost and service.
• Innovations to improve product quality, reduce customer complaints, reduce food waste and direct labour costs and improve sustainability.

Essential

• Excellent communication and project management skills.

• KPI focused, based on safety, quality, productivity, cost and delivery.

• Relevant and proven experience as a Project Engineer or Project Manager within a fast-paced manufacturing environment delivering complex capital projects, on-time and to budget
• Strong project management skills.
• Superb problem-solving skills.
• Focused on continuous improvement, lean processes and excellence in delivery.
• Good financial acumen with experience of managing capital project budgets.

Desirable:

• Degree or equivalent in an engineering discipline.
• Experience of working in chilled/frozen food manufacturing.
• Previous factory build experience.
• Experience of working with business management teams across the organisation.
• Industry qualifications in Health and Safety, HACCP and Food Hygiene
• Project Management Qualification

Personal Qualities

• Team spirited with a sense of urgency and agility.
• Able to work closely with the wider team, particularly production.
• Adheres to high standards of ethics and values – “does the right thing”
• Encourages organisational and individual responsibility towards the community and the environment
• Sets high standards for quality and output
• Focuses on customer needs and satisfaction, including internal customers
• Ability to make prompt, clear decisions
• Good problem solver
• Adapts interpersonal style to suit different people or situations

• Competitive salary – accredited Living Wage employer
• 25 days holiday per year, plus bank holidays
• Option to purchase up to 5 additional days annual leave per year
• Discretionary annual bonus scheme
• Pension scheme - employer matched contributions up to 4%
• Life assurance scheme worth at least 1x annual salary
• Subsidised canteen
• Free parking
• Free turkey or voucher at Christmas
• apetito perks scheme including salary sacrifice options and retail discounts

As a family-owned business, we take great pride in being a company that makes a real difference and is dedicated to creating outstanding meals to be proud of.

We develop a range of products designed to enhance health and well-being for all our customers.

We are driven by a passion for service, and dedicated to feeding some of the UK’s most vulnerable people.

We proudly support British food and farming, focusing on using the best ethical and sustainable produce in alignment with our goal to reach Net Zero by 2040.

Our ethical standards are recognised by the ETI and we are an accredited Living Wage employer.
Learn more about apetito’s commitment to a more sustainable future.

We embrace inclusion, empowering individuals from diverse backgrounds.

Our commitment to making a real difference extends to customers, communities, and staff and we're on a mission to build an inclusive workplace where everyone reaches their full potential.