Description
About us:
We're Tovala, a food-tech company completely reinventing home cooking to save consumers time. Through an innovative combination of hardware, software, and food, we give our customers a way to enjoy really good, good-for-you meals without sacrificing time to do whatever matters to them. We've amassed a loyal, rapidly growing following in just a few years, radically changing the day-to-day lives of people across the country and successfully creating a new model for the food industry. We're looking for great people to join our team of hard-working, food-loving nerds.
Job Description:
The Senior Manager, Food Procurement is an integral role for Tovala's supply chain team responsible for securing the best quality ingredients at the best price for our meal program allowing us to continue exceeding customer expectations. This person will plan, develop, and manage the team responsible for procurement of ingredients on a company scale coordinating between locations using effective negotiation, networking, and market trend research.
Note: This position will be located on-site at our Chicago production facility.
How you'll spend your time at Tovala:

• Effectively manage a team of buyers across multiple facilities
• Lead food purchasing process from end to end - create and refine tools that align demand for materials with production and sales forecasts
• Lead negotiations for ingredient contracts to mitigate volatility in pricing and other market conditions
• Develop a plan to mitigate interruptions of production due to ingredient shortages by securing secondary and tertiary options as needed
• Implement and execute a vendor onboarding process, ongoing approval process reviews to ensure product specifications, terminate and change vendors as needed
• Implement and execute a vendor performance rating system - Create metrics as required to monitor and evaluate vendor performance. to key attributes (on-time/ complete delivery, adherence to specifications, accurate pricing, etc)
• Partner with Finance to ensure ingredient costs are within goal and report and explain variances as needed, lead the annual planning process on these components and reforecast as needed
• Collaborate with R&D team on new ingredient procurement; once agreed to, ensuring that timeline deliverables for sourcing products can be met
• Follow Safety, GMP, Food Safety and Quality policies

Requirements

• 7+ years in a food procurement role at least 3 years managing a team
• Excellent time management skills and strong follow-through and follow-up skills, supported by professional references
• Ability to think and act critically about processes and supply chain systems with a focus on continuous improvement and staying ahead of market trends
• Strong project management, problem solving and planning skills
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Bachelor's degree in Logistics, Supply Chain, Food Science or related field preferred
• Ability to use MSOffice, Google Suites (Drive, Sheets, Docs, etc.)to create useful and transparent electronic tools for demand planning on materials and packaging.
• Food certifications and licenses as required by local regulatory agencies
• Must be able and willing to work in refrigerated coolers (~38°F) and Freezers (~0F)
• Ability to kneel, reach, bend, and lift (up to 50 pounds) throughout the work day and to work on your feet for the entirety of the day