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.
Pickleslut.
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 - rapid, 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, marinate 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.
#J-*****-Ljbffr

📌 Production Cook (Melbourne)
🏢 ACIDE
📍 Melbourne