Category Procurement Manager

Job Description:

Category Procurement Manager (Commodities)

Food Manufacturing – Midlands

£75K + Bonus + Benefits

Ready to take ownership of commodity procurement, build strategic supplier partnerships and lead teams across two sites within a growing food business?

We are recruiting for an established and highly respected food manufacturing group with a strong presence across the UK and Europe. The organisation supplies a diverse range of globally inspired products to major retail and foodservice customers and is recognised for responsible sourcing, authentic ingredients and long-term supplier partnerships.

The Role

The Category Procurement Manager will be responsible for the procurement of commodities within a defined portfolio, developing and executing category strategies that deliver value, mitigate risk and ensure continuity of supply. The role also carries people management responsibility across two sites, leading a small procurement team, ensuring alignment, capability development and consistent ways of working.

Operating cross-functionally with Supply Chain, Finance, Technical and NPD, the role will manage a global supplier base and play a key part in shaping procurement strategy.

Key responsibilities include:

• Ownership of the procurement of commodities for the assigned categories
• Leadership and development of a small teams across two sites, managing workload, priorities and performance
• Developing and implementing category strategies to maximise commercial benefit and security of supply
• Leading Commodity Risk Management (CRM), monitoring global markets and price trends
• Ownership of Purchase Price Variance (PPV) and input to annual budgeting
• Delivery of cost savings, cost avoidance and efficiency improvement programmes
• Supplier relationship management, KPI monitoring and resolution of performance issues
• Execution of tenders and negotiation of supplier contracts
• Identification and onboarding of best-in-class suppliers and strategic partners

About You

The ideal candidate will be an experienced procurement professional from a food manufacturing environment, combining strong commercial capability with proven people leadership.

Essential skills and experience:

• 5+ years’ experience in commodity procurement, in food manufacturing
• Proven supplier relationship management and negotiation expertise
• Experience in Commodity Risk Management and market analysis
• Working knowledge of supplier contracts and legal principles
• Familiarity with ERP/MRP systems
• Strong analytical capability with advanced Excel and PowerPoint
• Experience managing and developing small teams, ideally across multiple sites
• Understanding of global supply chains and strategic sourcing

Additional Information

This role will see you at one site 3 days a week and the smaller site 1 day, with one day working from home, both sites are in the Midlands area.