Taylor Farms is a family owned organization dedicated to being North America’s largest supplier of salads, cut vegetables, and healthy fresh foods. Our “Taylor Family” includes more than 8,000 dedicated team members, who are passionate about making high quality, great tasting products for families across North America.
We are currently searching for a National Strategic Sourcing Manager – Ingredients to join our National Deli team at Taylor Headquarters in Salinas, CA.
As the National Strategic Sourcing Manager – Ingredients, you are responsible for developing and managing the ingredient sourcing strategy across all Taylor Farms locations supplying prepared foods. The primary ingredients you are in charge of sourcing include: meats, cheese, breads, dairy, nuts, and dressings.
A successful candidate will be responsible for understanding the current state and managing a purchasing strategy across 7+ plants with local purchasing buyers. They will provide clear direction, business analysis and support to demonstrate the value of leveraging national suppliers, and metrics to show improvement and highlight areas of risk will be critical to the success of this program.
- 5+ years of ingredient purchasing and vendor management experience
- Proven track record of excellent negotiation skills
- Experience managing purchasing programs across multiple locations/territories
- Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Operations, Economics, or other related field
- SQL/database knowledge preferred
- Halo and Axapta experience preferred
- Excellent communication skills-written, verbal, and interpersonal
- Must have a “can-do” attitude to work in a fast-paced environment that is evolving and growing
- Strong ability to multi-task and prioritize
- Proficient in Excel, Word, PowerPoint; able to learn new programs
- Bilingual English/Spanish a plus
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Establish current state of the ingredient program across all prepared foods locations prioritizing high value, high risk, and high growth commodities and current ingredient distributor relationships/costs:
- Set standards for evaluating current suppliers
- Collect information regarding all vendors, pricing, quality measures, and existing agreements
- Establish current market conditions for each commodity and define markets to track moving forward
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Analyze the current state and establishing a recommendation by commodity for procurement at each plant through a comprehensive review of:
- Current supplier mix
- Supply and shortages across all regions; define critical information to share with suppliers to ensure consistent supply
- Define a primary and secondary supplier base for each commodity, establish committed versus market pricing and the appropriate allocations
- Establish forecast/usage requirements to share with vendors
- Develop national specifications for all ingredient products with QA and communicate them to Purchasing, Receiving, and Suppliers
- Improve national quality of suppliers
- Train and educate buyers continuously regarding the program, specifications, the markets, and all related information
- Work with individual plants and analytics team to develop standards and to manage any major supplier issues or yield deviations on ingredient products
- Implement vendor scorecards and conduct quarterly business reviews with national suppliers to review current state, market changes, any issues/concerns, and establish future targets
- Understands and manages suppliers to Food Safety requirements
