Category Buyer

The Menu Partners is a diverse food business supplying hotels, pubs and restaurants up and down the UK with whole, prepared or cooked food. Within our group of businesses, we also have Absolute Taste, a leading event catering company, Absolute Taste Inflight, our Private Jet catering business along with two farm shops, a pub and so much more.

The Menu Partners and Absolute Taste, two distinct business both at the cutting edge of their sectors, building future business via great people, operating at some of the biggest and greatest events on the planet, prepared to challenge the status quo, building new cultures and operating procedures that will meet the future business needs, attracting the best, supporting everybody, open minded, not afraid of change, prepared to go that extra mile for our customers etc.

We have the exciting opportunity to join our fast-paced and quickly expanding company. This role can be based either at our London or Bicester (Oxfordshire) office locations.

This is a great opportunity for an ambitious, commercially driven category manager with experience in category procurement to join fast-moving/paced.

You will take ownership for category procurement at The Menu Partners, including developing your portfolio, negotiating commercial opportunities with suppliers and work with other departments to drive customer satisfaction across the business.

As the Category Buyer, you will have a central role by leading and controlling the procurement activity within your category. You will get involved in a variety of projects and contribute directly to driving the overall success of the business.

This is a role critical to the growth and development of the business. You'll be working within a small, high performance buying team, reporting to the Head of Procurement.

**KEY DIMENSIONS**
- Development and evolution of a commercially competitive portfolio of products.
- Take ownership of the end-to-end sourcing process.
- Effectively liaise with suppliers on range development and commercial terms.
- Working with sales teams to facilitate the company budgeted sales and margin targets.
- Support inventory buying and stock control teams.
- Produce detailed, informative, market information to support sales teams and customers.
- Set clear savings plans with objectives, goals, strategies, and measures.
- Provide regular updates to the Head of Procurement on progress, opportunities, and roadblocks.
- Partner Head of Procurement to develop a world class procurement team.
- Shielding the business against cost inflation.
- Ensuring effective cross functional communication

**SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE**

Ideally, you will be experienced in buying/procurement within the food and beverage industry.

The key qualities required to perform the role successfully include:

- Product & Industry knowledge.
- Enthusiastic and committed attitude.
- Agile thinker
- Develop and conclude substantial agreements.
- Effective communication skills
- Project management capability
- Ability to work at pace
- Proven track record of delivering category growth and cost savings

**COMPETENCIES**
- Excellent numeracy skills
- Competent IT skills (Excel, Word, power point)
- Understanding of product technical requirements
- Strong presentation skills
- Effective time management

**THE ROLE**

40 hours per week
- This role can based either in London or Bicester

This list is not exhaustive of all duties and responsibilities.

INDMANAGE