Category Manager- Produce

Purpose

Strategically manages categories and negotiates to increase sales, gross dollars, market share versus prior year, and meet or exceed projected numbers. Recommends pricing, promotion, assortment and shelf planograms for each assigned category, based on detailed analysis of past performance and results, industry best practices, and consumer trends.

Responsibilities

Drives sales, sets a vision, and executes necessary steps for category success

Owns vendor relationship as a primary contact by maintaining quality relations and meeting on a consistent basis for growth results, negotiate future planning, range assortment, and understanding of industry trends

Manages P&L, monitoring and recommending prices, to obtain the most aggressive price in the market

Works closely with partner functions (sourcing, replenishment, supply chain etc.) and communicates category and promotional plans to ensure desired service levels and the optimum inventory position achieved

Owns cross functional work with a wide variety of teams such as replenishment, suppliers, branding, and others to fulfill objectives and responsibilities of full ownership to assigned items

Partners with promotional team on creation and implementation of a promotional calendar by major category and in tracking results at the end of each promotion in terms of sales, P&L share growth, or contribution

Collaborates with Space Planning team for POGs, attentive to advertisements, keeping foot traffic in mind

Drives product development through understanding market quality of both national and private brand, maintains private brand and product quality, and identifies need (or lack of need) for private brand products

Owns the assortment planning process by making logical recommendations of new items entering the market and discontinuing lines based on potential contribution to the category strategies and department

Takes ownership in working with the Quality Assurance team to determine the right quality specs and specify composition and sensory requirements of products

Holds supplier accountable to continually provide the negotiated quality within agreement terms

Collaborates with analysts and finance and analyzes category through measurement of total contribution to the entire department, previous results, and market trends to create a yearly category business plan

Acts as expert on assigned items with understanding of ingredients, commodity impacts, and packaging costs

Held accountable for gross profit projections at the category level, rolling up to department projections quarterly, monthly, and yearly

Partner with promotional planning and space planning teams to recommend ads and displays in support of the category plans and total department initiatives for stores

Visits competition as well as markets, stores, and distribution centers as necessary to observe resultsof product lines and communicate knowledge of competitive products, performance, and business trends

Ensures all items are in effective and efficient display cases for supply chains and stores

Pro-actively recognizes issues, defines customer-focused solutions, leads cross functional teams to define actions that will sustainably drive results, and presents strategy to line manager or above

Initiates and follow through on personnel actions such as: interviewing and providing input used in hiring decisions, and/or providing feedback on performance standards

Maintains formal and informal channels of upward communication; encourage the expression of new ideas, suggestions, and complaints; review them for appropriateness and further action

Performs other duties as assigned

About You

Bachelor’s Degree in Business, Marketing or related field and/or 3-5 years of relevant retail experience
3-5 years relevantbusiness experience where a solid understanding of marketing, merchandising, Consumer research andfinancial management practiceshave been gained
Solid financial, mathematical, statistical, marketing, merchandising, and consumer research background to read, interpret, and understand how internal and external factors influence financial results
In-depth understanding of store operations and merchandising methodologies and practices, including P&L and financial management
Familiarity with Category Business Planning or ability to learn
Ability to read and interpret P&L statement and understand how the categories managed are affected
Exceptional skills in negotiation, influencing, analyzing problems and decisions, and taking initiative
Interpersonal skills to build rapport, network, and maintain effective business relationships within and outside the company
Strategy development skills with the ability to manage short-term goals tomeet long-term initiatives.
Proficient in MS Excel and MS PowerPoint
Understanding of procurement, logistics, inventory management

Physical Requirements

Ability to travel up to ~10% of the time, which may include weekends and evenings, as needed
Most work is performed in a temperature-controlled environment
Incumbent may sit for long periods oftime at a desk or computer terminal
Incumbent may use calculators, keyboards, telephone andother office equipment in the course of anormal workday
Stooping, bending, twisting andreaching may be required incompletion of job duties

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