Senior Commercial Manager - M&S; Chilled Food Manufacturing

Senior Commercial Manager - M&S (Chilled Food Manufacturing)

Central - Nottingham

Commercial

Full time

Permanent

Competitive Salary + Bonus+Car Allowance+EV Salary Sacrifice Scheme

Hybrid Working with travel across UK manufacturing sites and weekly customer visits

Join one of the UK’s fastest-growing, PE-backed chilled food groups and help shape one of our most important strategic retail partnerships.

The Compleat Food Group is on a fast paced ambitious growth journey to become the UK’s leading chilled prepared food company. Backed by PE Partners, we have continued to grow through investment, innovation and strategic acquisitions, now operating across a broad chilled food portfolio with significant scale, pace and opportunity.

This is a very high-profile senior commercial manager role managing and developing our relationship with M&S across a substantial customer account. You’ll be at the heart of a key trading partnership, working across commercial, supply chain, category, NPD, technical and operations to unlock growth, strengthen relationships and deliver outstanding results for both our Customer and The Compleat Food Group.

We’re looking for a commercially sharp, relationship-led commercial professional with strong retailer experience and the confidence to build relationships. You’ll bring the gravitas to represent The Compleat Food Group externally, working in partnership to create new opportunities and turning them into tangible results.

This is a role for someone who is looking to progress their own career and who thrives in chilled food, understands the pace and complexity of short shelf-life categories, and wants to play a meaningful part in the next phase of growth for a fast-moving, entrepreneurial, multi-site national food group.

• Working on and owning the relationship across agreed categories and buying areas.
• Supporting the development and delivering customer business plans that drive revenue, margin, share and long-term value.
• Building trusted, strategic relationships with M&S stakeholders and acting as a credible ambassador for The Compleat Food Group.
• Working closely with the Customer Director and cross-functional teams to align commercial priorities, supply chain capability, NPD plans and operational delivery.
• Using category, market and sales insight to identify performance drivers, opportunities and clear action plans.
• Creating and managing annual promotional plans, tracking performance and ensuring activity delivers commercially.
• Influencing internal teams across production, supply chain, technical, NPD, finance and category to deliver against customer and business objectives.
• Supporting strategic partnerships, open-book costing conversations and commercially robust decision-making.
• Managing and supporting a small team including ensuring clear targets and objectives, performance and career development opportunties

• Previous commercial relationship experience within chilled food, short shelf-life or fast-paced ideally partnering with M&S
• A proven track record of working with major UK retailers, ideally M&S, at buyer level.
• Experience across own-label and branded products, with a clear understanding of what leading retailers expect from supplier partners.
• Excellent commercial judgement, financial literacy and analytical ability.
• Strong category awareness, with the ability to translate insight into growth plans and customer value.
• Confidence managing complex customer relationships and influencing at senior level, internally and externally.
• A proactive, resilient and entrepreneurial mindset, with the energy to spot opportunities and make them happen.
• Outstanding communication, attention to detail and stakeholder management skills.

This is a chance to step into a commercially significant role in a business with incredible momentum. You’ll joining a PE-backed group with scale, ambition and pace, where strong commercial talent can make a visible impact. With a diverse multi-site manufacturing footprint, leading chilled food capabilities and a major strategic partnership with Tesco, this is an opportunity to influence growth at the highest level.

You’ll…