Careers
at Florosa
Florosa is a Charlottesville-based bakery and flower farm dedicated to craft, quality, locality, sustainability, and doing our best even though we are people who also do make mistakes and love learning from them. We specialize in latin style crafted pastries, baked goods, and desserts operating with a commitment to high standards, systems, and thoughtful execution. We are looking for a dedicated Pastry Prep Cook with kitchen or pastry experience, that values small business and local food to start in August or September.
Pastry Prep Cook
Company: Florosa
Location: Charlottesville, VA (In-Person), home based bakery
Job Type: Part-Time; ideally 8a or 9a - 3p or 4p Weds, Thurs, & Friday (roughly 18-25 hours).
Compensation: $20/hour
Requirements:
Must be 18 years of age
Must be able to clock in and out using Square Teams on a personal device.
Must have valid driver’s license
Must be able to complete catering deliveries to campus, using cellular enabled personal device to map directions and communicate with clients
Must be able to lift 50 lbs
Preferred minimum of 6 months of professional kitchen prep or baking experience preferred (production baking or pastry background is a significant plus). This is not a job for someone wanting to learn how to bake, unless they have serious home baking experience and want to learn professional baking with a provided portfolio and demonstration of knowledge. All considered applicants will have to complete a 4 hour paid stage ($20/hour).
Confidence in basic pastry skills like the creaming method, meringues, whipped creams/mousses, and caramels.
Demonstrated ability to read, scale, and execute complex recipes.
Ability to maintain speed, focus, and physical energy during repetitive production tasks while standing for 4 to 6 hours. Stools provided for long tasks like scooping cookies or breaking down fruit/herbs.
Ability to lift up to perform repetitive hand and wrist motions (scooping, rolling, whisking).
Be excited and willing to harvest herbs, flowers, fruits, vegetables, and perform gardening & farm tasks like weeding, and giving bakery scraps to the chickens.
Bonus: serv-safe certification!
Position Summary:
The Pastry Prep Cook is responsible for harvesting needed components from the garden, scaling, mixing, portioning, baking, packaging, and delivering Florosa products. This role focuses heavily on the execution of established formulas as well as flexibility working with developing formulas.
The ability to follow written and verbal direction is extremely important, as established recipes outline scaling, mixing, portioning, and baking while newer recipes require flexibility and interest in process. The ideal candidate finds satisfaction in repetition, consistency, and maintaining a clean workspace.
All employees are provided with a copy of: Understanding Baking: The Art and Science of Baking by Joseph Amendola & Nicole Rees.
What a Day at Florosa could look like:
Check in with Chris (owner and baker) for outline of tasks for the day
Consolidate frozen doughs, properly labeling, dating, and FIFO-ing items
Wash, sort, cut, process, and properly store herbs, flowers, or produce from the garden or local farms
Arrange a fruit plate or veg plate! Fill a box of coffee and prep and package items for a catering order.
Scale, mix, portion, and bake items like cakes, cookies, quick breads, caramels, buttercreams, whipped ganaches, and crumbs
Restock ingredients like 50# bags of flour, pulling butter from freezers to thaw, and tracking if items from the recipe you just scaled need to be re-ordered and written down on re-order list
Deliver a catering order to campus or other locations, maintaining proper delivery standards and using a Florosa provided vehicle
Work alone and have confidence doing so, while Chris or other staff member executes catering deliveries or other tasks
Wash your dishes as you go, as everyone washes their own dishes and works together to make sure the dishes on the drying rack get put away
Harvesting flowers and herbs, packaging flowers and herbs, and pressing flowers and herbs
Assisting with shaping doughs like conchas, medialunas, savory croissants, and pastelitos
Communicate with closer/dough mixer about tasks they need help with, and work together to accomplish tasks if need be
Clean up tables, dish pit, sweep, and take out trash, compost, and recycling to set up the closer/dough mixer for success