Sustainability Team Member - Austin

About CookUnity: Food has lost its soul to modern convenience. And with it, it has lost the power to nourish, inspire, and connect us. So in 2018, CookUnity was founded as the first-of-its-kind platform that connects the world with the source of truly great food: chefs.

Today, CookUnity delivers 50 million meals a year from the industry’s best chefs to homes all over the country. Fresh. Ready-to-eat.

And crafted with the passion that nourishes body and soul. Unwilling to stop there, CookUnity is expanding beyond delivery to become an ever-innovating marketplace focused on our singular mission: empower Chefs to nourish the world. If that mission has you hungry in more ways than one, you’ve found the right job posting.

About The Role

The Sustainability team member plays a key role in ensuring that daily waste‑management procedures are executed correctly across the Austin facility, a large-scale operation spanning roughly 20 different chef teams. This role supports the operational execution of recycling, compost, waste audits, and donation processes, helping maintain clean, compliant, and efficient waste‑diversion systems and reports directly to the Sustainability and Sanitation Operations Manager. The Sustainability team member is responsible for carrying out daily walkthroughs, completing waste‑audit forms, preparing and coordinating donations, and ensuring correct sorting and disposal of materials in all kitchens and work areas.

This role provides essential operational support to the facility by monitoring compliance, identifying contamination, and reinforcing correct waste‑handling behaviors among staff, freeing the Manager to focus on department growth and cross-functional coordination. You will ensure that Zero Waste procedures are followed consistently and effectively, contributing to CookUnity's environmental operational priorities — with the goal of achieving Zero Waste Certification for the Austin market. Summary Execute daily operational tasks related to recycling, compost, waste audits, and donation management within the Austin facility, ensuring compliance with processes and sustainability standards.

Responsibilities

: Daily Waste Audits: Perform daily bin audits across all kitchens and document findings on the Daily Audit Bin Form. Correct Waste Disposal : Ensure proper waste disposal procedures are followed in all kitchens. Overproduction Processing: Classify, weigh, and process overproduced food — routing it to charity donation's, compost, or internal reuse (family meal).

Food Waste Handling : Classify, weigh, and dispose of food waste, including donations, compost, garbage, and family meals. Facility Walkthroughs : Conduct daily walkthroughs of kitchens, green stations, fulfillment, and market areas to identify contamination in recycling and compost streams. Contamination Control — Check recycling and compost streams to ensure they are free of incorrect materials.

Material Sorting — Separate and move recyclable and compostable materials according to facility standards. Donation Management: Collect, weigh, record, and pack donations; receive donation partners and hand off prepared products. Donation Coordination: Coordinate donation pick‑ups with partnered non‑profit organizations.

Walk-In Raw Ingredient Collection: Support the weekly walk-in collection process — pulling, logging, sorting, and routing recoverable raw ingredients across all 20 refrigerators. Too Good To Go Sales: Coordinate the sale of surplus meals through the Too Good To Go platform — including setup, customer handoff, and close-out logging. Return Packaging Program: Coordinate logistics and shipping with local carriers to send returned packaging materials off-site for cleaning and sanitization.

Daily Reporting: Complete daily trackers for recycling, compost, and donation volumes. Zero Waste Compliance: Follow all safety, cleanliness, and Zero Waste process standards.