Production Cook

Pickleslut.

No dinner service. No weekends. No split shifts. We’re Pickleslut® — we make ACIDE pickles and ferments and FUK FUK hot sauce in Melbourne’s Sunshine North — and we’re after a production cook with a chef’s brain who’s done with chef’s hours.

About us.

Pickleslut® is a Melbourne fermentation and pickling producer. Our ACIDE range and FUK FUK hot sauces sit on shelves and menus in delis, restaurants and bottle shops across Victoria and interstate. We’re a small, tight team in Sunshine North that makes everything by hand, at volume, to spec — and we take the food seriously without taking ourselves too seriously.

About the role.

Twelve months in, you own the rhythm of the production kitchen: barrels of kimchi and kraut going down on schedule, prep dialled before anyone has to ask, and a Thursday team lunch that people actually look forward to all week. This isn’t a cheffing role — there’s no service, no dockets — but it rewards someone who thinks like a chef: sees the whole week, works backwards, and finishes the job rather than the clock.

What you’ll do.

• Make ferments at scale — kimchi, sauerkraut and brined pickles: building, salting, packing and monitoring barrels through the ferment room.
• Break down produce by the crate — cauliflower, cabbage, chillies, whatever the week’s production plan calls for — fast, clean and consistent.
• Own the Thursday family meal. Every Thursday the whole team downs tools and eats together — properly. Your dish, your call. You get the full week to plan it: stock on Monday, marinade on Tuesday, veg on Wednesday, bring it home Thursday. Not gourmet — generous. If your idea of a team lunch is a pot of plain boiled pasta, this isn’t your gig.
• Keep the kitchen tight — cleaning as you go, food safety records, labelling, stock rotation.
• See what needs doing and do it. The best days here don’t need a run-sheet.

What we are looking for.

• Real cooking experience — café, restaurant, catering or food production — and you still actually enjoy cooking.
• A chef’s brain: you plan backwards from the deadline, notice what’s low, off or out of place, and act without being told.
• You communicate. When something’s off-spec, running short or not right, you say so early — out loud.
• Reliable. A small team means everyone feels it when someone doesn’t show.
• Comfortable with physical work — on your feet all day, lifting up to ~20 kg (heavier barrels are a team lift).

Nice to have:

• Home or professional fermenting/pickling experience.
• Food Safety / Food Handler certificate (we’ll help you get one if not).
• HACCP or food-manufacturing exposure.

The deal

• Casual to start, with a clear path to full-time for the right person.
• PAY RATE — $32 -$35 p/h
• Mon–Fri, 7:30am–3:30pm. Some days run to 4:00pm when there’s work to land — we want someone who finishes the job, not the shift.
• A long Thursday lunch, every week. We break bread together — your bread, ideally.
• Staff pickles. Obviously.