Category Buyer

**Category Buyer (Packaging)**:
***Who we are looking for.**:
Butternut Box is looking for an experienced Packaging Category Buyer to join our Procurement Team. In this role, you will be responsible for an International & varied supply base, purchasing across a range of materials including plastics and corrugated board.

This is a high-profile role, playing a pivotal part in building our long-term packaging strategy, reducing costs, driving our sustainability agenda, protecting the business against risk and bringing new products to launch. This is an extremely dynamic role flexing across our operations and across our 5 international regions (which continues to grow each year). This person will work closely with the teams in Production, Product Development, Technical, Fulfillment, Brand, Supply Chain and international teams, giving the unique opportunity to have a full view of our total supply chain.

You are dynamic, entrepreneurial and a self-starter who works proactively, and is excited about the opportunity to work in a rapidly scaling business We are looking for someone to come in and hit the ground running with strong experience working with various materials in a manufacturing setting, bringing fresh ideas and enthusiasm to the current Procurement team.

***A bit about the role.**:
You will report into the Senior Buyer who heads the Packaging and Third Party Manufacturing categories and will work alongside an energetic team. Your focus will be to take full ownership of the £10m Packaging category spend with a focus on creating long-term strategic partners, onboarding, forecasting our packaging spend and supporting new product development. We are looking for someone to help drive our sustainability agenda and ensure our products are fit for purpose as we continue to scale. This person is ideally CIPS qualified and works well under pressure with the flexibility to adapt to changing Business requirements and priorities. This may mean managing alternative & additional spend categories as the business continues to scale, in line with the teams development and the greatest needs at the time. International travel & over night stay will be required on an ad hoc basis to our suppliers, trade shows and our 'box office' in London. The role is hybrid working with weekly presence at our production site in Blyth (_S81 8HG)_

**_ Key responsibilities:_**

Goals & KPIs
- Directly build the long-term packaging strategy cross-functionally to deliver value & quality & minimise risk
- Working with the Operations team to identify and deliver continuous efficiency and/or cost improvement opportunities
- Challenge and manage suppliers to deliver the required standards and measure their performance against agreed objectives, putting in place corrective actions where necessary.
- Manage our continuously growing supplier base, ensuring we are building a network of strategic partner suppliers
- Be accountable for the packaging budget. Forecasting & reporting monthly costs and ensuring cost stacks are always correct.
- NPD & Sustainability_
- Keep a close eye on future market trends and appetites, attending key trade shows domestically and internationally to keep up-to-date knowledge of packaging innovation & sustainability developments.
- Deliver on our sustainability and environmental agenda.
- Work with suppliers to translate concepts into robust, viable commercial packaging solutions
- Use reporting tools and communicate regularly on the progress of projects
- Undertaking the full supplier sourcing & onboarding process through to contract award, including pre-qualification, evaluation of 'best value', co-ordination of both commercial and qualitative assessments, credit checks, negotiation of terms and conditions

**A bit about you**:

- Experienced working with packaging
- Essential
- experience working with PA/PE, PE products or corrugated board
- Essential
- experience working with packaging in a manufacturing setting
- Essential
- experience working with complex packaging cost models
- Someone with a deep, end-to-end understanding of the packaging & printing process, from idea conception to launching a new product to market.
- Packaging technical & regulatory knowledge with a passion for sustainability
- E-commerce (direct to consumer) packaging experience *preferred
- Exceptional stakeholder management & alignment abilities
- Organised with a very keen eye for detail and the ability to work under pressure
- Flexible with a strong ability to adapt to changing priorities and needs of the business
- Commercial awareness; you should be comfortable in leading Supplier negations and able to take a holistic view of the impact of your role in the business
- Ability to travel Internationally including overnight stays
- Passion for e-commerce and dogs

**A bit about us.**:
At Butternut, we put the food back into dog food. We believe dogs deserve to eat the healthiest, most natural and tastiest food with none of the nasties. Tha