Careers in FMCG - Category Management

Vicky Gray has taken on the new challenge of buying indirect goods and services for Northern Foods following a stint in the ingredients buying team. No more trips to Turkey to buy sultanas for her – she’ll be spending time with agencies in London, the Goodfella’s pizza team in Manchester and the Fox’s Biscuits team in Slough.

She is hugely grateful to be given this new role which is the fourth she has held at Northern Foods. Gray joined in an operations role at a Carlisle-based site supplying Marks & Spencer quiches before joining the procurement team as an analyst in Wakefield. From here, she progressed to the buying team itself and bought a wide range of ingredients for the 21 Northern Foods sites in the

UK and Ireland.

“You had to be organised in this role and have good time management skills to help keep all the sites and suppliers happy,” she says. But she talks of the sense of achievement felt when a protracted and difficult negotiation was successfully completed, adding: “There’s no high like that one.”

Her new role is, of course, different as she is essentially buying people. “I can’t really put a price on creativity at our agencies, so I negotiate to ensure we get the best value we can, which might not be the cheapest price,” she says. “I have been lucky to have been given this new challenge without having to move company, as procurement has emerged as playing an increasingly vital role within any company.”