National Account Manager - fine food - JS/Waitrose/Ocado

Brining 5* restaurant quality food/ingredients to the retail sector .

If you like your fine food and have experience of the retail grocery sector this could be for you!

My client is an importer, manufacturer and domestic distributor of a premium quality range of Mediterranean foods (chilled & ambient). They have been established since 2001 and put real emphasis on the quality of the product. Their account base is varied ranging from Michelin-starred restaurants, high end Independent food retailers through to your local supermarkets and travel retail. The business seeks to employ people who share the entrepreneurial, can-do attitude built into its DNA and tends to attract self-motivated individuals who are energized by the responsibilities available in what is still a relatively small, flexible informal family business' environment.

The company has had significant success as a B2B packaged brand and now wishes to capitalize on this success with retail-packaged branded sales to the consumer, both in the UK and abroad. The business believes that there is a significant opportunity to leverage the prestige heritage of its wholesale activity to develop a stand-out, premium and iconic consumer brand in the Mediterranean food sector, currently incoherently serviced by a disparate range of relatively anonymous names. There are very few chefs in the UK who have not used the company's products and there are close working relationships with most of the opinion-forming / celebrity brigade. The companies brand already enjoys considerable loyalty amongst its limited but high-end consumer base and punches well above its sales weight in terms of consumer awareness. There is significant potential to build rates of sale and distribution of the existing product range and to win new accounts both at home and abroad. You will be responsible for a 4m portfolio spread across Sainsburys, Waitrose, Tesco and Ocado.

Reporting to the Sales Director you will be an independently-minded, self-motivated individual who has the skill-set, hunger and ambition to grasp a rare opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the development of a potentially iconic brand. You will need to show a proven track record in National Account Management with a minimum of 3 years in the food sector. Ideally, you will have had some specialist food experience and be familiar with the inner workings of Sainsbury's and Waitrose in particular and the UK multiple sector in general. However, experience of other consumer sales channels may also be attractive and you will be expected and be given the freedom to explore every avenue available to a premium brand. Ideally, you will also be a genuine foodie who can empathise with the ABC target market and be excited by the challenge of bringing culinary sophistication to a wider audience.

If you like the sound of the above then I'd love to hear from you.

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