Senior Trader

About Creed

Creed is a family business established in 1972 which is ambitious with its growth within the industry. We deliver a great range of multi-temperature food products, including our butchery and fresh range to caterers across the country from our bases in Cheltenham, Ilkeston & High Wycombe. It's a great place to be and we are proud of our role in supporting our local community. We are dedicated to creating a great place to work and have been recognised as a "Sunday Times Top 100" Company to work for after achieving “two star” status with Best Companies. Our people are committed to our values, choose their attitude and think customer. They work hard, are committed to providing a great service, have fun and develop along the way. Our employees often get involved in charity events, attend the Director breakfasts, put forward their ideas for improvement and contribute in team briefings. Our core business values are being: Commercial, Proud, Friendly and Nurturing.

Role Details

This role will achieve commercial terms targets and marketing execution with agreed supplier portfolio of circa 175 suppliers worth circa £1.75 million of below the line revenue across £30m of spend and take ownership for the full product life cycle within designated categories to achieve range and financial targets while aligning to the business needs and customer demand.

Some responsibilities of the role include: 

Supplier, Product & Category:

• Supplier relationship and category management for designated categories and agreed supplier portfolio.
• Effective delivery and tracking of supplier commercial revenues.
• Source new products in line with the internal business strategy and external customer retention and development strategy.
• Price management, Range Reviews, Competitor Analysis, Market updates, Commodity Tracking and reporting.
• Support the business with slow moving and short dated products by working with suppliers to create an exit strategy.
• Maintain a broad understanding of owned categories stock holding and risk at all times.
• Keep up to date with changes to product regulatory compliance and suggest and approve solutions, design roll-out plans and support the team to implement actions to maintain regulatory compliance.
• Facilitate solutions to industry challenges and changes across relevant categories.
• Ensure accuracy of supplier billing and minimise queries from Finance.
• Regular product benchmarking via product comparison process.
• Competitor analysis and market updates across product range, execution and customer offering.

Internal Stakeholder:

• Liaise closely with Marketing to ensure Trading strategy dovetails with Channel & Consumer insight.
• Maximise potential margins through product swaps and suggested alternatives through developing and nurturing effective relationships with the Sales Team.
• Present proactive plans and Category insight to internal and external customers of all levels.
• Provide clear management of expectations and definition of timescales to internal customers.
• Liaise with the Supply Chain team to ensure continuity of supply.
• Share best practice, supplier and range information with Country Range Head Office and Member counterparts.

Management:

• To assist the Head of Trading and Data to recruit, train and develop the Trading team both for new positions and succession planning in a positive, customer focussed, and professional manner.
• Contribute to developing a diverse, inclusive, solutions-oriented, and customer service focussed culture through coaching and mentoring the team and encouraging two-way communication.
• Listen to and share employee, customer and stakeholder feedback and review and suggest ideas and actions to improve employee engagement and Best Companies feedback.
• Ensure that the department demonstrate professionalism and deliver an awesome customer experience to both internal and external customers.
• Measure, and report performance against the Company service targets and budgets and suggest and review ideas for improvement.
• To provide management cover Trading & Data colleagues during their absence.
• Share ideas and develop innovative ways of working to improve company performance and employee engagement in line with the business strategy within departmental budget.
• Management of Commercial Income tracking and forecasting.
• Co-ordination of trading team for Commercial income tracking.
• General people management of direct reports including regular 121’s and employee lifecycle.
• Departmental and cross departmental project management

The Ideal Candidate:

We're looking for someone with a strong desire to make a difference and go above and beyond for our customers.

Essential:

• Highly self-motivated to achieve agreed goals, able to work efficiently and independently within time constraints.
• An organised and methodical approach to work and prioritisation that ensures the achievement of deadlines.
• An excellent understanding of key metrics that impact the commercial revenues including Overider, Marketing income & Product Rebates.
• A strong understanding of the Foodservice marketplace.
• Experience managing relationships across the product supply chain.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills and experience working with both internal and external stakeholders of all levels.
• Experienced and confident delivering presentations.
• Excellent communication, interpersonal and relationship building skills.
• Strong Numeracy skills and GCSE grade C(4) or equivalent as a minimum.
• Proficient in MS Office, particularly Excel and ideally with experience using Office 365, Teams and Sharepoint.
• Extensive FMCG Product knowledge ideally gained from within one of the ‘out of home’ channels.
• Experience Managing the Product Lifecycle; List, Launch, Review, De-list.
• Experience collating, tracking, managing, and reporting on personal revenue targets accurately.
• Experience working as part of a team within an office environment.
• Experience sourcing new products from both an existing supplier base and new suppliers.
• A strong understanding of product allergens, nutritional information and government food legislation (Sugar Tax, HFSS Etc).
• Experience working within Food, FMCG or other commercially related industry.
• Experience managing a supplier or customer portfolio.
• A strong understanding of traditional and digital marketing execution including print and digital advertising and E-Commerce.
• An excellent understanding of the sales process and customer management processes for large, complex or national accounts and experience delivering support to a large sales team facing a broad customer portfolio.
• Experience managing people in all aspects of the employee lifecycle, coaching and mentoring and team building skills.

Desirable:

• 3 years of experience Managing the Product Lifecycle; List, Launch, Review, De-list.
• 3 years of Trading experience within the food industry.
• Experience managing and presenting to senior board members.
• Project Management skills and experience leading large scale, multi-functional business projects.

What you get in return:

• Competitive salary and comprehensive benefits package.
• Training and development and career progression opportunities.
• Recognition for doing a great job and going the extra mile from customers, your department and the rest of the business.
• Respect and support from your team, supervisors and managers.
• 33 Days of annual leave per year.
• Life insurance for 2 times your annual salary.
• Employee discount on purchases and regular special offers for staff.
• Access to an online discount portal, providing discounts for gyms, the cinema, supermarkets, high street retailers, cashback for changing your electricity supplier and much more helping you to save money on purchases that you would ordinarily make.
• Employee assistance programme that offers confidential support and advice which includes free access to legal advice, wellness programmes and much more.
  Auto-Enrolment Pension Scheme.

Creed also offer employees the opportunity to join our Savings Scheme, join the Staff Lottery to support our selected charities and be in with the chance of winning £250 each month, an additional day off each year which you can use to help a charitable cause of your choice and much more. We are also a Living Wage Foundation accredited employer.

If you think you have what it takes, please click 'Apply Now' below to send your C.V for consideration.

We are an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from all suitably qualified persons regardless of their race, sex, disability, religion/belief, sexual orientation or age, as outlined in our equal opportunities policy.