Location: Spalding / Hybrid – with the ability to travel to suppliers and sites

Contract Type: Permanent

Business Area: Procurement

We're the biggest name you've never heard of. You've probably eaten our food - you just didn't realise it. We make innovative fresh products, with around 18,500 colleagues working across the UK, US and China. We’re the market leader in the UK fresh prepared food industry supplying meals, salads, desserts, pizza and bread to leading grocery retailers (including Tesco, M&S, Sainsbury's and Waitrose). We’re ambitious. We’re full of ideas. And we’re ready for more people who share our values and passion for quality to join us.

Category Buyer

We’re proud to offer you a career with real scope for development. To reward your hard work and ambition as a talented Category Buyer with plenty of support and opportunity. And empower you to drive your own success and create a career you can be proud of too.

In this busy and exciting role, you will manage the delivery of the short-term procurement strategy - ensuring maximum commercial value across a designated portfolio and that expenditure is managed accordingly. 

You will influence both internal and external stakeholders throughout the sourcing process to successfully deliver agreed portfolio plans, whilst ensuring group goals and business needs are met and risks are managed - maximising commercial advantage.

Accountabilities

• Delivering portfolio using product knowledge which is recognised both internally and externally within the value chain and customer
• Delivering the annual procurement strategy across portfolio ensuring maximised value to Bakkavor and its customer base
• Ensuring business and customer needs are understood and managed to deliver long term sustainability
• Confirming that all areas within your portfolio have a clear and robust risk management plan in place, encompassing all business needs
• Ensuring risk plans are agreed with the appropriate stakeholders, to support full implementation and effective contracting
• Providing support with any necessary crisis management across portfolio
• Taking ownership for portfolio prices within the group’s financial forecasts and tracking ongoing performance – updating live tracker accordingly
• Generating measurable financial and commercial value from the supply base
• Developing and owning relationships with suppliers, ensuring we have performance measures in place which are reviewed regularly - using these measures to make sure that key suppliers are meeting continuous improvement targets relating to value, quality, service, risk management and innovation
• Contributing to and delivering the Category Improvement Plan (CIP) for designated expenditure which is aligned and approved by the relevant stakeholders - maintaining as a live and evolving document holding regular reviews with key stakeholders to drive delivery
• Being recognised as the portfolio lead for Bakkavor within the value chain, managing and influencing on procurement matters to meet our strategic objectives
• Maintaining strong relationships across the group and with customers where appropriate - demonstrating effective management to deliver category plans and strategy
• Understanding the technical risks and working closely with the technical function to proactively manage change to products or suppliers
• Providing input into the sourcing strategies and plans - considering the Responsible Sourcing Policy

About you
 

Ideally you will have previous experience of a procurement role from a buying perspective, preferably within a food manufacturing setting.

Strong negotiation, communication, influencing and relationship building skills with the ability to present complex information clearly, will all be key – as will a full UK driving licence.

You will be CIPs qualified or hold relevant demonstrable experience and have a sound understanding of financial accounts

If you have solid knowledge of procurement processes and experience within categories, contract law and commodity or base raw material tracking methods – this could be the perfect role for you.

What you can expect from us

When joining us you can expect a highly competitive rewards package including group pension, bonus, private medical insurance, and other flexible benefits - alongside excellent career progression prospects across the Bakkavor group.

Proud to be Bakkavor

We’re proud to deliver outstanding quality, service, and value to our customers. We’re proud to be the leading provider of fresh prepared food in the UK. And we’re proud of the hard work, quality focus and loyalty of our people. Join our team and we’ll make you proud too.

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