Category Development Manager II

Salary Range is $116,450 to $145,555 per year

The Senior Category Development Manager plays a pivotal role in advancing Foster Farms' category leadership across the portfolio-including Branded Retail, Food service, and Private Label products. This role serves as a senior strategic business partner to Sales, Marketing, Trade, Innovation, and Revenue Management by transforming complex data into actionable growth strategies that strengthen customer partnerships, influence business decisions, and guide long-term brand and portfolio strategy.

The ideal candidate is an experienced category leader and data-driven storyteller with deep command of syndicated, shopper, retailer, and receipt-level data who can shape internal strategy, influence senior stakeholders, and lead external sell-in conversations through clear, persuasive, insight-led narratives.

• Develop 3-5 year category growth strategies across Foster Farms' portfolio by leveraging Circana (IRI), 84.51, Numerator, retailer platforms, and other sources to identify growth opportunities, consumer trends, competitive risks, and long-term strategic priorities.
• Develop and lead executive- and retailer-ready presentations that position Foster Farms as a trusted category thought leader and preferred strategic supplier.
• Own the identification and communication of category growth drivers, white-space opportunities, competitive performance, and business implications to shape portfolio, assortment, shelving, pricing, promotion, and innovation pipeline priorities.

• Serve as a strategic category advisor to major retailers, using fact-based sell-in stories to influence retailer category direction and demonstrate the growth value of Foster Farms' portfolio.
• Partner with Sales leadership to shape strategic customer plans, joint business plans, and category recommendations tailored to each retailer's objectives, shopper base, and growth opportunities.
• Lead annual business reviews, top-to-top meetings, line reviews, and strategic business reviews with clear, actionable recommendations that support category growth, customer priorities, and executive-level alignment.
• Build trusted, executive-level relationships with key customer stakeholders by consistently delivering category expertise, commercially grounded recommendations, and forward-looking growth opportunities.

• Establish best practices, processes, and standards for category analytics, reporting, customer presentations, and strategic recommendation development.
• Drive alignment across Sales, Marketing, Finance, R&D, Innovation, Revenue Management, and Trade to ensure category insights translate into coordinated business action.

• Recommend resource investments and business priorities by connecting category opportunity, customer strategy, business impact, and organizational capability.
• Influence pricing, promotional, portfolio, and assortment strategies by providing category, shopper, and competitive implications that support volume, share, profitability, and ROI decisions.
• Lead major business opportunities and risk mitigation plans by identifying emerging threats, quantifying impact, aligning stakeholders, and recommending clear actions for senior leadership.
• Partner with Innovation and R&D to shape pipeline priorities, prioritize new product opportunities with the greatest growth potential, and provide ongoing visibility to competitive launches, marketplace performance, and emerging consumer needs.

• Lead advanced analytics and visualization efforts to distill complex data sets into clear insights, strategic implications, and impactful visuals for senior leaders and customers.
• Maintain expert working knowledge of Circana/IRI POS data, retailer-specific platforms (84.51, Scintilla, and others), shopper panel data (Numerator), and internal business performance metrics.
• Continuously improve reporting, measurement, and insight-generation processes to increase accuracy, efficiency, scalability, and relevance for key stakeholders.

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Marketing, Economics, or related field (MBA preferred).
• 7-10 years of progressive experience in Category Management, Sales Strategy, Consumer Insights, or related CPG commercial roles.
• Must reside in PST, MST or CST time zones
• Demonstrated ability to translate data into strategic recommendations that influence retailer decisions, cross-functional…