A little bit about us
We are BEAR and Peter’s Yard. Two ambitious brands under the Lotus Bakeries Natural Foods umbrella.
BEAR are determined to take a big bite out of bad snacking habits. Grrr.
At BEAR we make pure fruit snacks with no added nonsense that make being healthy a little bit easier and a whole lot tastier.
We started out making our tasty pure fruit yoyos, taking over the kids fruit snacking category. Since we launched 14 years ago, we’ve grown quickly and we are currently sold in all the UK supermarkets. With the backing of our parent company Lotus Bakeries, BEAR has launched internationally and has great presence in the US and across Europe.
We share one amazing world and BEAR is on a mission to help protect the planet and all the people and creatures that call it home. Read more about how BEAR is growing a better tomorrow here:
https://www.bearsnacks.co.uk/growing-a-better-tomorrow
PETER’S YARD is a growing bakery business making award-winning sourdough crackers and snacks. The company was founded in 2008 and is on a mission to be everyone’s favourite premium bakery brand. It is now listed in Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Waitrose, Ocado, Morrison’s, Booths, Wholefoods, Amazon and 3,000 independent farm shops and delis. In July 2022, Peter’s Yard was acquired by Lotus Bakeries and is now part of their Natural Foods group.
About the Role
We are looking for a passionate new Head of Category to join an ambitious and high performing business that has driven continuous double digit growth for the last 3 years. Reporting to the Managing Director you will be responsible for leading a team of 3 to deliver outstanding category advice to our key customers, while internally delivering the insight, reporting and category strategy to unlock growth.
Area
Key Responsibilities & Objectives
Leadership and Team empowerment
* You’ll lead the category team for BEAR and Peter’s Yard in the UK by setting clear direction, encouraging your team and the wider business to always deliver exceptional results, empowering them through trusted leadership and personal development.
* Setting clear objectives and building development plans for 3 x Category Managers to support them in their personal growth.
* Work with our colleagues in the wider business to identify and deliver insights into the UK and Global Brand Marketing teams to inform and shape strategy.
Customer Collaboration
* This is a customer facing role – whilst you won’t necessarily be responsible for retailer accounts day-to-day you will need to build and maintain strong relationships with key contacts so that our customers understand and buy in to our strategy and vision.
* Strong understanding of retailer strategies and the wider environment to ensure we remain customer and shopper centric.
* A strong external network is also helpful to give you an outside perspective from other categories and businesses.
Strategic Insights
* All this data is only useful if it enables us to make better business decisions. You’ll be integral to the way that the business uses data.
* Key input as part of the MD’s leadership team, being the voice of category and source of objective truth.
* Development of the UK Category Vision and Strategy for both BEAR and Peter’s Yard and translating this into something that is both actionable, executable and understandable within each retailer.
* You will lead and own the strategy for Revenue Growth Management.
* You will kick off our annual planning process with a brand and category diagnostics, meaning our brand plans are always insight led.
Developing best practices
* You’ll make sure that the right data is available to the business and is being used the right way - whether informing internal strategy and business planning, or improving relationships with our retailers.
* Management of continuous data and regular reporting on category performance to the total BEAR and Peter’s Yard business. Feeding in monthly KPIs to the MD leadership meetings.
* Management of the UK BEAR and Peter’s Yard category budget – ensuring we are getting the most value for our data.
You will likely be an existing Senior Category Development Manager or Head of Category within an FMCG environment.
Alongside living our values, here are the most important things we’re looking for from you:
* A passion for data and well-versed in the tools of the trade (Nielsen, Circana, Kantar, Dunnhumby, SIP)
* This is a data driven, strategic role, so you’ll be a great problem solver with experience of using complex insight data to create short and long term strategies
* Excellent communication skills, in particular inspirational presentation skills
* Ability to build great relationships both internally and externally, finding collaborative simple solutions and being recognised as a trusted expert that unlocks opportunities
* Outcome focused, results driven
* Able to prioritise quickly in a fast moving, entrepreneurial environment
* Proven commercial acumen by being able to evaluate how category strategy will impact sales and profitability
* This is a small team within the business, but it has a big impact – we need someone who will be an inspiring leader. We’d love someone who doesn’t take themselves too seriously, who is passionate about contributing to the culture at BEAR, Peter’s Yard and the wider Natural Foods business and who is as happy to get stuck in