Category Buyer Chilled (23355) in London

It's a really exciting time to be at Holland & Barrett. We are investing across all areas of our business with a vision of empowering our customers to live happier, healthier lives. Our mission is to be the leading player in global wellness chosen by millions as their trusted partner for personalised wellness journeys. To achieve this goal, we are embarking on a radical transformation. We are recruiting top talent in all areas of our business, from Finance to Digital Marketing, from HR to IT, as well as new functions around Health and Wellness.

This is a hybrid role located in London (+1 day per week in our Nuneaton Head Office CV10 7RH)

We have a fantastic opportunity to join our Food Commercial Team here at Holland & Barrett International, ideal for someone who is highly driven and tenacious with experience in Food buying. As a Chilled Category Manager, you will take the product management process of a specialist, market leading retailer – from the drawing board into our customers' hands. You will be responsible for developing the buying and growth strategy for your product areas and will source and develop product ranges which satisfy our customers' omni-channel missions, whilst achieving our company objectives. You will use your understanding of short life supply chains to collaborate with Supply Chain colleagues, balancing availability & product wastage.

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

• Continuously reviewing current Category performance and the marketplace, to ensure you understand how your area is currently trading, and how you can build on this to deliver profitable growth.
• Curate branded products that complement our pioneering Own-Label product range, and deliver to our target customer need states.
• Working with the Global Own-Label Product Development Team and supply base, to deliver an innovative and profitable product range to meet anticipated customer demand and improve the commercial performance of the Category.
• Leading supplier negotiations and joint business planning for our key strategic partners, to maximise profitability, ensuring that suppliers meet requirements on margin, marketing support and delivery performance. 
• Leading the promotional trade planning process and master plan for your category, which is customer led and delivers profitable sales growth.
• Delivering range reviews for your category focused on meeting the needs of our customers, and delivering profitable growth.
• Working with the Trade Planning and Marketing teams to maximise the success of promotional activity and NPD launches.
• Providing information and analysis to assess products with higher than expected markdown / wastage, optimising the product supply chain for quality.

• Experience of Chilled Food Retail Buying or Category Management
• A Growth mindset and experience in Food is key.
• Good negotiation skills and influencing skills.
• Understand the Food, CPG and Retail landscape and have an interest in innovation in these areas
• Understand the important of maintaining a trusted Brand and curating products that deliver to our Brand strategy.
• Understand customer segmentation, data and insight that can support strategic product curation.
• Highly motivated for yourself and the wider team.
• Strong communication and time management skills.
• Track record of working independently, and equally thrives in a team environment.
• Ability to build relationships both with suppliers and internal multi-discipline teams.
• Strong numeracy and analytical ability to find trends and patterns from reports.
• Microsoft Office proficient, particularly Excel.
• Able to travel (expensed) at least one day per week to our Nuneaton HQ – other working days are spent in our central London office, our Development kitchen in Nine Elms or remotely.

Our Benefits for this role include, but not limited to:

• H&B Employee Discount - 25%
• Bonus
• Pension company contribution
• 33 Days Holiday per year
• Private Medical Care
• Exclusive benefits, free advice and savings from a range of retailers and providers
• Electric Car Scheme

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