We are looking for a Category Manager to join our Category & Innovation team. It's an exciting time to join us and you will be working at our brand new site on the Chichester Food Park which is based near to Chichester, West Sussex.

Are you an experienced Category Manager looking for a transformational and exciting role?

If so we would like to hear from you!

Food industry experience would be desirable although not essential, you will need to be an experienced Category Manager with experience from a commercial business. This is a customer facing role working with the top Retailers and food service businesses in the country. You will be managing our customers' categories to drive growth for them and for us.

You will also be coaching and mentoring within the role so you will need excellent people skills and be a team player.

We are a growing business with proven success and lots of future plans, so it is an excellent time to join us and make your mark.

Here's a bit more detail:

Role type: Permanent.

Hours: 8.30am - 5.30pm Monday - Friday. Some flexibility may be available once established within the role.

Responsibilities:

• Understand the performance drivers of the customer vs the market and other retailers.
• Working across all of our categories with each customer.
• Conduct category reviews with customers.
• Identify gaps and opportunities to grow the category for the customer and for us.
• Provide NPD with understanding of range gaps and opportunities to support effect range submissions.
• Work in partnership with NPD, Sales and Commercial Finance to ensure Range recommendations enhance our commercial position.

Key Accountabilities

• Providing objective consumer, shopper, category and market insight to the customer.
• Work hand in hand with account managers and growth teams to mine out and extract insight to create and activate commercial opportunities for the company.
• Pull out insight from category data to support selling arguments for us to grow share and profit / revenue.
• Conducting category reviews and identify short, medium and long term growth opportunities for the customer.
• Sell in activation activity vs the Category plan and identified drivers.
• Providing on-going objective category advice and recommendations to the customer on elements of range (distribution management and gaps), merchandising, fixture and in-store communication.
• Developing merchandising solutions for the customer to drive optimal space on shelf for driving sales and optimal merchandising to drive ease of shop.
• Developing relationships within the customer (buyer, merchandisers, category teams) and become the go to category advisor.
• Work with NPD to provide consumer and shopper understanding to drive effect range development and support submission process by providing range and product insight.
• Ensuring the growth team understands the category performance within the customer.

Skills:

• Category management expertise.
• Proven ability to analyse and interpret quantitative and qualitative data.
• Strong Commercial awareness.
• Working knowledge of Nielsen or IRI, Kantar and retailer loyalty card data.
• Excellent presentation skills.
• Proven time management and organisation skills.
• Proficient in the use of Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint.

About you:

• Excellent communication both written and verbal.
• Experience of working in a fast paced and commercial environment.
• Ability to build and maintain strong and effective relationships.
• Demonstrate responsiveness and ability to work flexibly.
• Ability to work effectively across functions.

About us:

Here at Natures Way, we love food!

It all started in 1994 with bagged salad and now we are a leading and award winning manufacturer of fresh convenient food such as prepared salad and fruit, food to go, dressed salads, coleslaw and potato salad to name just a few, supplying to some of the UKs largest household name supermarkets and restaurants.

Operating at four sites on the scenic south coast, Natures Way Foods (NWF) is now one of the largest employers in the area. We're immensely proud to employ a diverse team of nearly 1200 talented, committed and high performing people, valuing their individual strengths, talents, industry knowledge and experience.

The Perks:

We want you to love working for us and what you do, so we have put together a great package of benefits:

• A competitive salary plus company performance related bonus.
• Laptop and mobile phone.
• Company pension.
• 25 days holiday.
• Healthshield Perks healthcare package.
• Life Assurance policy.
• Plenty of development and training opportunities.
• Employee Assistance Programme.
• Exclusive online benefits and discounts.
• Free parking available across all sites.
• Relocation packages available.

About the office location:

All four sites are located close to the bottom of the A3 and M27, surrounded by fields and serenity. Our offices are modern, bright and airy.

We're also proud to say we're an equal opportunities employer.

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