Sr Fresh Kitchen Program Manager

Love's Travel Stops & Country Stores is a renowned family-owned and operated business headquartered in Oklahoma City, dedicated to fueling customers' journeys since 1964. With nearly 40,000 team members, Love's has established itself as a leader in the travel stop industry, providing an extensive range of products and services tailored for professional drivers, fleets, the traveling public, RVers, alternative energy consumers, and wholesale fuel customers. The company prides itself on its commitment to innovation, community involvement, and fostering an inclusive work environment, which has earned it a respected presence and numerous accolades within the industry.

The Senior Program Manager for Love's Fresh Kitchen plays a pivotal role within Love's Travel Stops, focusing on advancing the proprietary food and beverage brand's long-term success. This position is strategic and leadership-oriented, overseeing go-to-market testing and managing innovation-driven projects that align with the Love's Fresh Kitchen (LFK) strategy. The role is integral to the Foodservice Department, tasked with driving sustained growth and development of the LFK brand, ensuring it remains a preferred destination for travelers seeking fresh, high-quality food options.

As a Senior Program Manager, the incumbent leads the end-to-end planning and execution of cross-functional Fresh Kitchen initiatives. These initiatives predominantly revolve around food innovation projects and limited-time offer (LTO) testing, emphasizing operational readiness and timely delivery. The role requires ownership of project scope, plans, timelines, risks, dependencies, and success metrics, working collaboratively with Category Management, Operations, Supply Chain, Innovation teams, and other stakeholders to ensure smooth execution. Managing complex store-level transitions, including item exits, new item introductions, reset sequencing, and innovation pilots, forms a significant part of this responsibility, with a strong focus on risk mitigation and disruption minimization.

In addition to project leadership, the Senior Program Manager ensures the development and maintenance of standardized project documentation and execution frameworks, including detailed project plans, communication strategies, workflows, process maps, and training materials. The role involves designing and implementing controls to monitor project performance and value realization, guaranteeing alignment with the Fresh Kitchen strategy and measurable business impact.

Moreover, the position encompasses collaboration with Fresh Kitchen Innovation leadership to define operational handling standards that support product development, testing, and national rollout. It ensures pricing strategies and menu offerings align with the long-term menu architecture and financial targets, emphasizing customer value propositions.

Supply Chain support is another crucial aspect, where the manager ensures all new products for testing are correctly set up, forecasted, and available, working closely with Restaurant Pricing to confirm accurate configuration for receiving, inventory counting, and depletion based on approved recipes and yields. The role also requires cross-functional collaboration to develop training materials, including guides and video content, and partnership with Workforce Management to assess labor impacts related to new initiatives.

Leadership extends to coordinating construction and facilities for new Fresh Kitchen equipment introductions, overseeing store-by-store placement reviews to align with the overall Fresh Kitchen strategy, and partnering with Facilities and Maintenance teams for equipment maintenance strategies. During new program launches, the Senior Program Manager provides on-site support to ensure smooth operational implementation.

Strategic responsibilities include partnering with Retail and Merchandising Analytics leadership to define testing frameworks, success criteria, and measurement plans to evaluate financial, operational, and customer performance. The role demands synthesizing feedback from customers, stores, and the field to inform strategic decisions and strengthen future product launches, coupled with delivering executive-level recommendations to senior leadership. Overall, this role represents a critical leadership opportunity to influence the growth and innovation trajectory of Love's Fresh Kitchen, contributing meaningfully to the broader organizational mission of enhancing customer experience and operational excellence.