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Commercial Manager

Employer
FareShare UK
Location
Field Based
Salary
£38000 - £40000
Closing date
15 Oct 2021

Job Details

The role

The Commercial Manager will focus on working with the food industry to provide increasing volumes of surplus foods to the charities and community groups we support across the country, the success you have, together with your colleagues in the Food Team, will be critical to maintaining our growth.

Your role will be to identify, develop and manage new business relationships and strengthen existing business relationships with companies in the food industry, generating value for the partner and to secure growing and sustainable volumes of surplus food for the FareShare Network.

When it comes to our key partners, you will undertake a strategic account management role leading and coordinating FareShare’s engagement right across our organisation ensuring professional account management and enabling us to leverage the appropriate influence, expertise, and funding from these key partners as well as food.

You will work with food partners to help identify and overcome the barriers which exist to giving surplus food to people in need.  These include operational, financial and historical issues, including competition from income streams available to industry e.g. selling surplus food to anaerobic digestion or animal feed processors. FareShare has been able to secure external grant funding to help overcome these barriers and help increase the volumes of fresh foods which are redistributed. This role will include working with food partners and other stakeholders to identify opportunities to apply this fund, seeing initiatives through to completion, monitoring the impacts, benefits and evaluation.  

You will also be required to work closely with FareShare colleagues within FareShare and across the UK in our partner organisations in order to identify and understand opportunities for creating mutual and shared value.

Main areas of responsibility

Business Development and Relationship Management

  • Research, investigate and approach food companies that have the potential to divert surplus food products to the FareShare network.
  • Research relevant key personnel within the organisation that will help drive its success and engage the relevant internal departments.
  • Working with the partner and with FareShare’s supply Chain and Logistics Team develop systems and business processes which are appropriate for that partner and which will ensure they are managed in the most environmentally, socially and financially efficient way.
  • Prepare and proactively promote the benefits of working with FareShare to existing and potential partners
  • Working in conjunction with the Food Partners Senior Managers and other members of the team plan and manage delivery of the FareShare Food Strategy relevant to your accounts
  • Be responsible for, and proactively drive, your own lead generation setting of appointments and meetings to progress these relationships
  • Scope and implement partnership agreements and/or service contracts between Fareshare and Food Partners
  • Implement food partner account management practices to support continued development and growth of key food partners
  • Keep up to date with industry and charity insights and ensure this is reflected back strategically across ways of working and account management

Project and Initiative Management

  • Be responsible for managing and communicating key projects and initiatives to increase food volumes and strategic value, securing support from a range of stakeholders within food partners and across the FareShare network.
  • Work closely with Supply Chain and Logistics, Operations and Network Development teams with the aim of optimising food out to our network
  • Develop and lead FareShare cross-departmental strategic activity to enable us to derive maximum value from key food partners including liaising with fund raising, marketing and volunteering teams

Competencies and behaviours

  • Proactive, organised and able to work under pressure, whilst maintaining excellent attention to detail
  • Excellent written and verbal communication with effective presentation skills
  • Good knowledge of Microsoft Offices packages, ideally at an advanced level and with a good level of numeracy and literacy
  • Analytical and data-driven approach to problem solving
  • Creative approach to problem solving and developing new opportunities and initiatives

Person Specification

As an employer committed to Equal Opportunities, we will assess applications in line with these criteria that we consider either as being essential or desirable in this role.

  •  
  • Demonstrable experience managing multiple accounts in the FMCG, food, retail or comparable sector with professionalism and integrity consistently meeting or exceeding challenging targets
  • Good working knowledge of the key players across the food industry and their ways of working
  • Successful track record of managing cross-functional projects to tight timescales and budgets, ensuring involvement of all key stakeholders
  • Ability to develop and maintain effective working relationships at a range of levels and across multiple functions with a variety of internal and external stakeholders.
  • Ability to use own initiative working independently and responsibly

Desirable

  • Experience of working in a retail or food industry sector
  • Experience of project evaluation, data-driven analysis and impact reporting
  • Relationship and stakeholder management experience of large corporate partners
  • Knowledge of and interest in Sustainable Development, Corporate Social Responsibility and experience of its application within the business environment

 

Company

About FareShare
FareShare is the UK’s national network of charitable food redistributors, made up of 18 independent organisations. Together, we take good quality surplus food from right across the food industry and get it to nearly 9,500 frontline charities and community groups.
The food we redistribute is nutritious and good to eat. It reaches charities across the UK, including school breakfast clubs, older people’s lunch clubs, homeless shelters, and community cafes. Every week we provide enough food to create almost a million meals for vulnerable people.
Every year, more than three million tonnes of food go to waste in the UK, enough for 7 billion meals. Meanwhile, the cost-of-living crisis is driving millions into food insecurity. FareShare has a plan to help tackle the cost-of-living crisis using England’s surplus food.
We are fortunate to benefit from the support of major retailers, the media, sports ambassadors and a groundswell of public engagement. As a result, there has never been a more exciting time to join an organisation at the heart of public consciousness.

FareShare’s Strategy & Vision

Vision: We have the vision of a UK where “No good food goes to waste”.
Mission: To use surplus, fit for consumption, food to feed those who are vulnerable in the UK by supporting front line charitable organisations that tackle the cause and not just the symptoms of food poverty.

Our Purpose: We are doers. We are a community. We change lives.

Our Values: Passion – for our cause and the challenge that lies ahead
Ambition – to go the extra mile and drive the change that must happen
Respect – for ourselves, each other, our volunteers, our partners and our beneficiaries
Collaboration – it’s only by working with others that we can be stronger
Focus – on providing the best service possible so that we deliver and
achieve the most for our clients/customers.

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