Sr Buyer Produce

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The Sr Produce Buyer will utilize their category expertise and vendor specific knowledge to manage inventory levels for all assigned items, suppliers and/or categories while maintaining service level and spoilage targets to our customers across multiple distribution centers. Responsible for delivering forecast accuracy and forecasting per defined goals by SKU and/or product family. Collaborate with Logistics Operations, Produce Category Management, markets and Suppliers to understand USF optimized supply chain opportunities.

This role will be onsite 2 days a month. Candidates will need to reside within one of the 3 areas:
Lenexa, Kansas, Grand Island, North Dakota or Omaha, Nebraska.

• Delivers on KPIs for desk specific goals such as:
  Service Level, Days-Inventory-On-Hand (DIOH), spoilage and freight income.
• Proactively reviews projected out of stock report daily to ensure we deliver on customer order fulfillment.
• Analyzes economic order quantities, forecasts, lead times, vendor set-up, safety stock, etc., in-order to create efficient purchase orders with our suppliers.
• Communicates closely with our cross-functional partners to capture seasonal trends and events in the business as well as drive profitability with accurate costs.
• Partners appropriately with product/category management team to maintain supplier relationships and proper accountability.
• Cooperates with the logistics team to identify and achieve freight consolidation to maximize net income.
• Point person for all third party logistic managed loads.
• Evaluates inbound volume and purchase history to collaborate with warehouse operations on efficient receiving practices.
• Executes forward-buy opportunities to achieve profitability for period or year-end based on targeted goals.
• Confirm all purchase orders accurately using vendor confirmation as well verifying this cost using the loaded vendor price list.
• Clear any costing discrepancies between the received PO’s and the vendor invoice, through the Buyer Match Pay process by 8 pm each Wednesday.
• Work with vendors to reconcile any discrepancies. Achieve PO Cost Accuracy % on the Buyer KPI scorecard
• Review all daily cost exception reports and take appropriate action to insure all costing data is accurate and up to date, including:
• Review Last Cost Reasonableness report and resolve any issues
• Last Invoice Cost to Total Market Cost variances
• Weekly review of the Last Invoice Cost Book report and resolve issues
• Inventory revaluation report including auditing any inventory gains
• Set-up new item cost attributes to reflect accurate inbound cost
• Review PO timing to identify and mitigate impact of LPM / LPW costs
• Review PO freight costs for appropriateness and address issues with the appropriate stakeholder (ie, incorrect freight on PO, freight rate issues.
• Maintain up-to-date and accurate freight information and maintain control of the freight rate process utilizing the Network Strategy Rate
• Maintenance team and produce replenishment. Obtain current transportation market data to update rate information based on industry trends or cost increases.
• Proactively ensure the accurate development of demand data based upon forecast, current inventory targets, replenishment lead-time and master data settings. Interpret and report forecast implications of phasing-in/out of items. Full ownership of forecasting of your desk.

Hybrid:
This role is partially remote, and the associate is expected to perform assigned responsibilities from a combined home-based and office-based environment.

Minimum 4 years of purchasing, and/or related work in the procurement or logistics field, produce experience preferred. Prior experience working…