Category Manager – Deli Cheese

Summary

This position is responsible for managing and developing the retail merchandising program including planograms, seasonal products, ethnic products, events, and weekly merchandising direction to the stores for promotional activities. This position is also responsible for developing and executing product strategies including product assortment, promotion, pricing, and planograms, in the Deli Cheese Category.

Specific Responsibilities

• Accountable for the operational execution for the category with the Deli Operations team.
• Identifies strategic opportunities to deliver new revenue streams to Deli Cheese Merchandising through new products, tools and/or services, innovation, promotions, and marketing.
• Conducts internal and external research, mines data, and applies strategic thinking in order to make sound business recommendations that will deliver sales growth.
• Complete periodic reviews of categories in conjunction with the Category Manager, AC Nielsen and Dunnhumby. Conduct analyses of retail history, advertising success, product movement, space allocation (merchandising) and overall category performance. Set objectives accordingly to meet overall sales and profit targets.
• Monitor competitive and industry activities (including trends, fads, etc.) regarding merchandising, marketing, assortment, pricing, and promotions
• Conducts in-store and competitive shopping audits.
• Assist in implementing pricing strategies and provide input in setting retail prices
• Work with Central Procurement and Private Label on development of products
• Creates and delivers strategic presentations to convey key business opportunities and next steps in product development to internal and external partners.
• Collaborates with vendors to deliver on identified new product opportunities.
• Acts as the implementation project manager; assign and manage a cross functional team and hold people accountable to deliver results.
• Defines success metrics and key performance indicators up front and measures and tracks results.
• Measures and communicates financial performance of product innovation programs.
• Ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations.
• Works collaboratively with field specialists to ensure store operation procedures are maximized and ensure Deli Meats programs are commercially viable
• Required to visit stores with the added goal of providing direction and coaching of store teams and specialists.
• Train, educate and assist Specialist(s) and employees in the Deli Cheese category on product knowledge, handling, and merchandising. Develop all training programs for the Cheese Category and train Operations team, for deployment at store

  • Develop cheese and wine pairing manual.
  • Continuously develop and implement cut and wrap cheese program.
  • Advise stores on merchandising standards including regular in-store merchandising sets and weekly/monthly promotional feature activity.
  • Provide direction and support to the field merchandisers on an ongoing basis to provide solutions and opportunities at store level.
• Financial accountability for the category including sales, profit, and yield.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree
• 5-7 years of relevant experience
• Excellent analytical skills
• Intermediate knowledge of Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint
• Excellent communication skills
• Some travel required