Category Buyer

As a category Buyer working on the Food service Categories you will develop the full range of products aligned with our business model.

You will be responsible for developing the buying strategy for your growing product areas, and will source and develop product ranges which satisfy our customers' requirements, whilst achieving our company objectives.

By confidently using your influencing and negotiating skills, both with our supplier base and internally, you'll work strategically to make sure we deliver customer-centric ranges and promotions that meet our financial targets.

This role will entail you having an understanding of retail/wholesale products, services and policies with experience in Impulse Buying, inventory and analysis. Knowledge of key business drivers eg, pricing, promotion, range and product trends coupled with strong planning and negotiation skills is key.

You will need to develop excellent communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to influence stakeholders effectively. You will be comfortable balancing and delivering on a wide range of challenges and tasks, be adaptable and flexible with the ability to work in a fast-paced environment.

Main Responsibilities

• Develop a Full range of products to meet the food service and retail sector demand to include, Imported products, frozen range, chilled range, ambient, ingredients, Meat, poultry, Vegetables, drinks and beverages.
• Research and investigate demand of products, prices, current supply chain for our target market.
• Research and investigate profit margin and competition within our target market
• Open trade Accounts with Suppliers and sign up to service level agreements with suppliers in line with our company policy.
• Agreeing regions, territories, and distribution rights with suppliers.
• Negotiating prices and promotions to suit our growing customer base.
• Continuously reviewing current Category performance and the market place, to ensure you understand how your area is currently trading, and how you can build on this to deliver profitable growth
• Working with suppliers to create an Own-Label Product portfolio, to deliver an innovative and profitable product range to meet anticipated customer demand and improve the commercial performance of the Category
• Involvement in supplier negotiations to maximise profitability, ensuring that suppliers meet requirements on margin, marketing support and delivery performance
• Delivering promotional trading plans to drive profitable sales growth, including the forecasting of promotional products.
• Delivering range reviews for your category focussed on meeting the needs of our customers, and delivering profitable growth
• Working with the Trade Planning team to maximise the success of promotional activity through accurate sales and product forecasting.
• Providing information and analysis to assess levels of slow moving & dormant stock and work with the team to clear. Maintain stock at agreed levels for planned activity and to reduce overstocks
• Developing and delivering the Range plans
• Ensuring the category and sub-category budgets are achieved
• Working with the Supply Manager on the availability of their category
• Building supplier relationships and collaboration opportunities
• Negotiate annual agreements with suppliers to improve the commercial outlook for PFG
• Negotiate / upsell PFG’s additional capabilities, for example Digital Advertising
• Ensure that all necessary paperwork / confirmations are accurately recorded and that rebates / accruals are invoiced correctly
• Being responsible for the overall direction and performance of particular categories
• Executing Category Reviews and monitoring their performance
• Creating Category Business Plans from the annual category position profile
• Ensuring new trends are brought into the business and an exit strategy for delisted products is in place

You :

• Experience of Category Management or Buying, in Food and non-food product range
• Good negotiation skills and influencing skills
• Strong communication and time management skills
• Track record of working independently
• Ability to build relationships both with suppliers and internal multi-discipline teams
• Strong numeracy and analytical ability to find trends and patterns from reports
• Experience in using forecasting tools and techniques, ERP software solution and intermediate user of all Microsoft Office tools including Excel
• Determined, tenacious and resilient
• Optimistic and open-minded to change
• Customer focused
• Positive, resourceful and an energetic team worker
• Driven to continuously improve both yourself and your team's performance