Sobeys Inc. is a proud Canadian company with 108 years in the food business. Sobeys Inc. serves the food shopping needs of Canadians with approximately 1,500 stores in all 10 provinces under retail banners that include Sobeys, Safeway, IGA, Foodland, FreshCo, Thrifty Foods, and Lawton’s Drug Stores as well as more than 350 retail fuel locations.
Together with our 125,000 employees and franchise affiliates and a collective passion for delivering exceptional food and shopping experiences, Sobeys’ purpose is to improve the lives of Canadians by helping them Eat Better, Feel Better and Do Better.
We have an opening for an accomplished Produce Sourcing Manager in the area of Produce Procurement. This role will be based out of our office in Boynton Beach, Florida. The Manager will play a key role in managing the growth of the produce procurement platform and strategy for produce commodities. The Manager will enhance our strategic alignment and quality offerings in produce.
The role will have a reporting staff which will augment the activities in Canada and the existing sourcing operation in Phoenix, Arizona to support our continued growth. The role is tasked to deliver a strong food proposition to customers that are focused on quality, freshness, variety, and assortment. The Managers task is to leverage the scale of the business to drive efficiencies in quality, consistent supply, product cost, and logistics resulting in savings for the company.
In addition, the Produce Sourcing Manager will develop collaborative and engaging vendor relationships to secure the best produce in the marketplace while improving services levels to the stores. The role will include working with the collective business team and vendors as it relates to building and or refining upstream and downstream processes associated with delivering outstanding fresh produce and service.
At Sobeys our passion includes our people, and as a manager, they will assume accountability for the development and engagement of their team.
- 4 year college degree (preferred).
- 5+ years in a leadership role in the food retail industry (preferred).
- 10+ years’ experience in Produce Procurement.
- Strong computer and systems skills to include Microsoft Office.
- Experience with iTrade OMS platform and reporting functions (preferred).
- Financial Performance: Achieve Company and departmental financial goals and targets.
- Collaborate, establish, and monitor budget aspects for the respective office.
- Operational: Manage business and operational aspects of the physical office and or shared approach to sourcing business activities.
- Role includes harmonized connection to Arizona office in managing budget, expense management, payroll, worker’s compensation, business licensing-taxation, leasing components, benefits collaboration, iTrade platform, and IT-phone systems.
- Administration: Initiates and develops operational processes, oversees compliance to programs, initiatives, policies and procedures.
- Empowerment: Collaborates sourcing platform and maintains focus to achieve growth of a sustainable and leveraged US based produce sourcing operation.
- Relationships: Achieve respect and influence to E2E process goals via engagement, relationship building and alignment with regions, produce staff, vendor partners, industry groups and Sobeys corporate level business contacts.
- Vendor Alignment and Quality-guide: Development of strategic vendor programs and application of layered contracts for improving quality, cost components and category performance in accordance with divisional and company sales plan strategies.
- Strategic Opportunity. Act as the business relationship expert and be able to relate the strategic commodity opportunity by understanding cost-supply components, projected market fluctuations, weather impact, quality status, growing areas, and freight implications.
- Negotiations: Responsible for leading the team and having a direct role in achieving the lowest cost possible within a prescribed quality standard in regular and contractual negotiation.
- Service Support: Guide and monitor successful collaboration with regional teams, QC, logistics, and vendors to drive optimal service.
- Guides, motivates, and empowers the sourcing team to achieve business targets, innovative contributions and optimal service to the divisions.
- Develop a collaborative platform for inspiring industry leading innovation in commodity development, technology and operational processes.
- Supports staff growth and mentoring programs to build future leaders and drive personal and career development for the staff (specialist and admin) and self.
- Maintain positive and motivating environment for staff to maximize productivity and performance.
