Ut creamery store manager- ut creamery, herbert college of agriculture: utk

This position oversees retail operations, catering, and bulk sales coordination in a variety of locations on and off campus for the UT Creamery-both the on-campus location and off-campus location-student experiential learning retail business program. Responsibilities include managing daily retail store activities, managing student workers, supervising bulk and catering sales, creating program initiatives, and fostering strong relationships with the University of Tennessee (UT) internal departments and external partners. The ideal candidate has exceptional standards, is highly organized, detail-oriented, an excellent communicator, and experienced in retail and people management, with the ability to thrive in a fast-paced, high-energy environment. A positive, mentoring approach is essential for guiding and developing college-age staff while maintaining compliance with UT policies and delivering exceptional customer service. This employee will work within the Department of Food Science and closely communicate with the Creamery Manager, Business Manager and Staff. This position reports to the Manager of the Creamery.

RESPONSIBILITIES

UT Creamery Retail Operations & Retail Management:

• Oversee workers for daily and weekend retail operations: opening/closing, POS credit card handling, food/beverage process and policy control, sanitation and quality checks to ensure health-code compliance.
• Develops sales goals and plans to meet expectations on sales. Ensure university branding guidelines are followed. Provides input to develop retail business plans, retail strategies, and consumer product development, uses creative strategies to develop promotions and marketing strategies and campaigns to promote the Creamery and bulk sales initiatives.
• Responsible for retail store and bulk sales finances, expenditures, and timely invoice creation in conjunction with the Food Science Business office. Track inventory, place supply orders, and manage operations to meet both in-store and bulk demand. Use reports to analyze data to make informed decisions. Oversee retail finances of the UT Creamery to ensure budget compliance, approves student timecards and monitors payroll budget in conjunction with the Food Science Business office.
• Engage visitors and event guests about the UT Creamery brand, products and its mission.

In-Store & Off-site Bulk Sales:

• Cultivate relationships with internal and external stakeholders and communicate timely to grow in-store and off-site bulk sales events.
• Manage bulk sales coordination through emails, phone calls, in-person and spreadsheet tracking.
• Oversee logistics, preparing and executing from start to finish for each catering event, including staffing, transport, set-up/tear-down and guiding students for off-site locations.
• Manage exceptional customer service for in-store and off-site bulk sales experiences.

Staffing:

• Recruit, train, and schedule college-student teams to meet brand, university and health safety policies and processes. Ensure every guest receives outstanding service.
• Coach employees in professional public speaking skills such as communication, professional engagement, customer service and brand story telling. Develops progressive experiential learning opportunities for students to develop practical and professional skills.
• Manage students rotating roles (sanitation, store prep, scooping ice cream, milkshakes, POS register, daily checklists, inventory, bulk events).

Communication and Reporting:

• Develop and communicate retail business initiatives and key performance indicators with a plan of action to address any needs.
• Attend project meetings to represent the creamery with internal and external partners.
• Responsible for developing and delivering high-level presentations to internal and external stakeholders. Complies, evaluates, and analyzes data for efficiency and effective reporting in order to make effective recommendations.
• Timely send UT Creamery sales and tax information, business updates, bulk sales information, tracking and reports to Food Science and other UT stakeholders on a regular basis, and as requested.

Other duties as assigned.

QUALIFICATIONS

Required Qualifications:

• Education: Bachelor’s degree.
• Experience: 2+ years of experience in training/supervision.
• Knowledge, Skills, & Abilities: Knowledge of store and business side of retail policies, systems and procedures. (food service a plus). Ability to train and supervise employees in a positive way with high standards and results oriented. Strong public relations and interpersonal skills with ability to plan, organize and communicate well with professionalism while dealing with the public, key stakeholders and others. Retail business skills tracking sales, budgets, marketing and retail strategies. Ability in Microsoft Office: Email, Word, Excel (administration experience a plus).

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience: Experience in retail or restaurant operations environment.
• Knowledge, Skills, & Abilities: Advance POS/ERP system skills. Ability to work in a variety of retail-related fields while achieving impactful goals to drive business initiatives. Knowledge of food service retail policies, systems and procedures.

Work Location:

• Knoxville, TN
• Onsite

Compensation and Benefits:

• UT Market Range: MR08
• Anticipated hiring range: $60k to $65k
• Find more information on the UT Market Range structure here
• Find more information on UT Benefits here

Application Instructions:

To express interest, please submit an application with the noted below attachments:

• Resume
• Cover Letter

To be assured of full consideration, completed applications with all requested materials should be submitted on or before October 16, 2026.

About The College/Department/Division:

Herbert College of Agriculture has the benefit of being part of the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture (UTIA), which is particularly devoted to the University’s land grant mission through its AgResearch and UT Extension units, both of which provide historically strong links with businesses in and out of the state. Herbert has approximately 2,000 undergraduate students enrolled in 10 majors across seven academic departments and one school, plus nearly 300 graduate students enrolled. https://herbert.utk.edu/

The Department of Food Science resides within the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture and adheres to the three-pronged mission of land grant universities by providing quality research, teaching, and extension. The Department offers BS, MS, and PhD degrees and currently has 13 full-time faculty members with expertise in diverse areas of food chemistry, food microbiology, food processing and engineering, and food sensory science. For more information about the Department, visit our website at: http://foodscience.tennessee.edu/

UT Creamery’s primary purpose is to provide related experiences to their fields of study, while offering premium ice cream and a wide-ranging choice of UT Creamery and Rocky Top themed merchandise. A variety of roles are offered to students including modern ice cream production methods, manufacturing, logistics, product development, retail business management and analytics, marketing, merchandising, event planning, customer service, and direct-to-customer sales. For more information about the Creamery, visit our website at: https://utcreamery.tennessee.edu/

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