Graduate Account Manager

About CN Foods

CN Foods is one of the UK’s fastest growing independent food and drink distributors, supplying an exciting portfolio of brands to retailers, cafés, hospitality businesses and specialist food outlets. With a fast paced, entrepreneurial culture and ambitious growth plans, we offer a great environment for people who want to take responsibility, develop quickly and build a long term career in the food and drink industry.

We are looking for a motivated Junior Account Manager to join our commercial team. This is an ideal role for someone at the start of their career who wants to learn account management in the food and drink industry from the ground up.

You will begin by looking after a portfolio of customers including shops, cafés and other food and drink businesses. As your confidence grows, you will have the opportunity to get involved in business development, helping customers grow their range with CN Foods and identifying new commercial opportunities.

This role is designed to develop into a full Account Manager position. By six months, we would expect you to have built good experience and confidence in the role. After one year, subject to performance, attitude and progress, we would look to move you into a more focused Account Manager role with greater responsibility for business development, customer growth and managing a more targeted portfolio of accounts.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Managing a portfolio of shops, cafés and food service customers
• Building strong relationships with customers through regular communication
• Handling customer service queries, order queries and general account support
• Supporting credit control and ensuring accounts are managed professionally
• Learning CN Foods’ product range and understanding how products fit different customer needs
• Identifying opportunities to grow customer accounts
• Supporting business development activity as you gain experience
• Working closely with internal teams to ensure customers receive a high level of service
• Using internal systems, Excel, Google Sheets and customer information accurately

We are looking for someone with strong potential rather than a finished article. Previous account management experience is not required but the right attitude, communication skills and willingness to learn are essential.

The ideal candidate will be:

• Ambitious and keen to build a career in food and drink
• A confident communicator with very strong written and spoken English
• A natural people person who enjoys building relationships with customers
• Confident using computers and able to learn new systems quickly
• Able to use Excel or Google Sheets confidently
• Organised, reliable and able to manage multiple tasks
• Positive, proactive and willing to learn
• Commercially minded with an interest in how businesses grow
• Comfortable dealing with customer queries and problem solving
• Detail focused, especially when handling orders, account information and credit control
• Resilient and able to take feedback positively
• Interested in food, drink, retail, cafés, restaurants or specialist food shops

Experience in customer service, retail, hospitality, sales, admin or food and drink would be useful but is not essential.

It would be a bonus if you:

• Have a genuine passion for food and drink
• Follow food trends or enjoy discovering new products
• Are interested in sales, business development or commercial roles

This is a development role with a clear progression path.

• In your first few months, you will learn about CN Foods, our products, our customers and how account management works in practice
• By six months, we would expect you to have developed a good understanding of the role and be managing your accounts with growing confidence
• Subject to performance, the aim would be to increase salary from £30,000 plus PRP to £32,000 plus PRP after six months
• By one year, subject to strong performance and the right attitude, we would look to progress you into an Account Manager position focused more heavily on business development, customer growth and managing commercial opportunities

• Start your career in the food and drink industry
• Learn account management from the ground up
• Work with a wide range of interesting food and drink customers
• Build commercial, customer service and business development skills
• Clear progression opportunity into an Account Manager role
• Join a growing business with a supportive team environment

Working hours: Monday to Friday, 9:00am to 5:00pm

Working pattern: Office based with 2 work from home days per month. Further flexibility after probation.

Salary: £30,000 starting salary plus PRP. £32,000 plus PRP after 6 months subject to performance

Job type: Full time, permanent