Buying, Inventory and Product Development Manager - Coquitlam, Canada - Eat Wholesome™

Description

Eat Wholesome is an organic food brand specializing in healthy and ethical eating.

Our mission is to prove that you can cook healthy and ethically sourced food at home without compromising on taste.

We are a small and growing team with an entrepreneurial spirit where employee ideas and initiative are both valued and vital to delivering results.

You can find Eat Wholesome products in Canada, UK and EU through natural/specialty food retailers such as Whole Foods Market, regional supermarkets such as Metro Inc.

and IGA (Sobeys Inc.) as well as online retailers such as and Amazon.


Job Summary:

This is a hybrid role that develops and shepherds our organic products, from initial research of new opportunities and first concepts, to developing a final product that is ready to be sold to retailers.

This will include leading each product's costing stage, sourcing/supplier negotiation stage, packaging design, and finally its purchase order and inventory management stage, helping add to a growing and exciting range of organic foods.

Key Relationships:

This is an external-facing role that reports to the director and coordinates with producers, service suppliers and customers (distributors and retailers) as well as internal team members (Canadian team and UK/EU team) including marketing, operations, and finance.

Who You Are:

You are a detail-oriented, organized, and analytical professional with an entrepreneurial mind-set. You are also a self-starter who enjoys varied responsibilities and has a passion for organic, plant-based and health food.

In this role, you will leverage your negotiation, numerical and communication skills along with your buying/sourcing and project management experience, ideally in the FMCG industry, to support our continued growth in Canada, UK and EU.

What You'll Do:

• Range/

Product Development:
_

• Build a comprehensive product range and new product pipeline by collaborating with stakeholders and gaining insight on customer needs through analyzing industry, competitor and instore/ecommerce trends.
• Identify gaps in the market for new products and opportunities for improving on existing market offerings.
• Evaluate and advise on the viability of potential new products by researching their demand, competitive landscapes and product margin.
• Research and contact new manufacturing suppliers for prospective products, driving discussions on costs, capabilities and conditions for launch.
• Monitor quality of different production batches to ensure quality matches company standards.
• Negotiate best product cost, delivery and payment terms with key suppliers to ensure healthy margins are maintained on both new and existing products.
• Build and maintain positive relationships with new and existing suppliers.
• Purchasing and

Inventory Management:
_

• Optimize inventory health through monitoring inventory turnover, warehouse capacity and surplus inventory.
• Minimize overstock and outofstock inventory by accurately forecasting product demand, timely ordering, and closely following up on order/delivery processes.
• Forecast sales volume per product accurately by combining internal sales data, promotional plans and customer forecasting data.
• Maximize supply chain efficiencies by reviewing supplier operational performance, driving supplier compliance and resolving issues/disputes.
• Propose adjustments in pricing, helping to maintain margins or increase rate of sales through analyzing changes in product costs and inventory turns.
• Identify opportunities for improvement and corrective actions at all levels of inventory management.
• Design Project Management_
• Project manage the packaging design process from the initial brief to the refinement and final approval of artwork, working with our product manufacturers, design studio and internal team.
• Collaborate with design studio to ensure packaging accuracy, appeal, truthfulness and compliance with food packaging regulations.
• Create packaging content by gathering required info from product manufacturers, translating text into different languages with translators and deciding key information to highlight/add for appeal.

Qualifications:

• Purchasing/buying, inventory management or product development experience, ideally performed for a FMCG business.
• Motivated selfstarter with a track record of achieving or exceeding targets in a fastpaced environment with complex tasks and ambiguous data.
• Proven organizational, project management, and analytical skills.

This job posting is intended to describe the general requirements for the performance of this job. It is not a complete statement of duties, responsibilities or requirements. Other duties not listed here may be assigned.


Benefits:

• Dental care
• Extended health care
• Onsite parking
• Vision care

Schedule:

• Monday to Friday

Ability to commute/relocate:

• Coquitlam, BC V3K 6X9: reliably commute or plan to relocate before starting work (requir