Senior Category Manger - Fruits & Vegetables
Key Skills for This Role
Full Job Posting
Category ownership and leadership
- Plan assortment, buying, and pricing for 2–5 Fruits & Vegetables categories representing 10–20% of business sales.
- Lead and develop Senior Buyers, setting direction and driving team capability and accountability.
- Own category P&L for sales, margin, and known loss; deliver to budget and take corrective action when performance deviates.
Category growth and commercial management
- Drive growth through assortment development, new products, space optimization, and private-label or local-sourcing expansion.
- Benchmark competitors on assortment, pricing, and promotions; identify gaps and convert them into category actions.
- Lead supplier and grower negotiations and annual agreements to secure competitive costs, terms, and supplier income.
- Find and onboard local and international suppliers, growers, and farms to improve freshness, assortment, cost, and supply resilience.
- Execute pricing aligned with the Commercial Lead and maintain competitive price positioning.
- Own promotion and leaflet choices, including product selection, pricing, volumes, and supplier funding.
Supply, stock, quality, and food safety
- Work with supply chain and the distribution center to manage availability and freshness through fast daily replenishment.
- Align sales and promotional forecasts with supply chain and demand planning to secure availability and control stock and waste.
- Manage stock health, short shelf life, cold-chain needs, shrinkage, waste, known loss, and timely markdowns.
- Ensure produce quality and food-safety standards at receipt and on shelf; work on grading, cold chain, and supplier performance.
- Own commercial action on quality issues, including claims, returns, and delistings.
Role scope and capabilities
- Lead and develop a team of Senior Buyers.
- Own sales, margin, and known-loss performance across 2–5 categories, with category profitability accountability.
- Manage category planning, assortment, buying, and pricing within the Fruits & Vegetables business.
- Drive growth, supplier negotiations, product sourcing, promotions, freshness, availability, quality, and stock performance.
Key performance indicators
Category sales, margin, known loss, and profitability versus budget across the assigned categories.
Like-for-like growth, sales participation, and closing assortment and pricing gaps against competitors.
On-shelf availability, freshness, and fast daily replenishment against targets.
Shrinkage, waste, and markdown levels within fresh-produce targets.
Annual agreement terms, cost improvements, and supplier income versus targets.
Promoted-line sales uplift, margin impact, and leaflet performance versus plan.
Senior Buyer development, output, and delivery.
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