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.

• 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 results of 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

• Bachelor’s Degree in Business , Marketing or related field and/or 3-5 years of relevant retail experience
• 3-5 years relevant business experience where a solid understanding of marketing, merchandising, Consumer research and financial management practices have 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 affecte d
• 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 to meet long-term initiatives.
• Proficient in MS Excel and MS Power Point
• Understanding of procurement, logistics , inventory management

• 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…