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Category Manager
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Overview of the Business
Our client is a fast-growing branded food business operating within a highly dynamic and health-focused FMCG category. With a portfolio of market-leading brands and ambitious growth plans, they have established themselves as a trusted category partner to many of the UK's leading grocery retailers.
Insight sits at the heart of the organisation's commercial strategy, and they are looking to strengthen their category team with the appointment of a Category Manager to help drive both retailer and business growth.
Overview of the Role
This is a highly visible, customer-facing Category Manager position responsible for developing category recommendations and delivering actionable insights across a portfolio of major UK grocery retailers.
The successful candidate will combine strong analytical capability with excellent stakeholder management skills, using retailer and market data to influence customer decisions across ranging, promotions, pricing, and merchandising.
The role would suit someone currently operating within Category Management, Category Insights or Shopper Insights, or an individual with a retail buying or merchandising background who can demonstrate strong analytical capability and a passion for category growth.
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Responsibilities
Customer Collaboration
- Build and maintain trusted relationships with key retail Buying and Merchandising contacts.
- Establish yourself as a valued category advisor through objective, insight-led recommendations.
- Deliver regular category reviews and performance updates to retail customers.
- Identify risks and opportunities relating to distribution, rate of sale, pricing, promotions, and ranging.
- Support customer planning cycles with data-led recommendations and category growth strategies.
- Contribute to the ongoing development of the business's category vision and retailer-specific growth plans.
Category & Consumer Insight
- Become the internal expert across category, shopper, and retailer performance.
- Analyse Circana, Kantar, retailer loyalty card, and customer-specific data sources to identify trends and opportunities.
- Translate complex datasets into clear, compelling recommendations for both internal and external audiences.
- Support new product launches through insight-led sell-in recommendations and performance tracking.
- Monitor competitor performance and emerging category trends.
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Commercial Partnership
- Partner closely with Sales and Marketing teams to support customer strategy and business planning.
- Provide actionable recommendations across range, fixture, pricing, and promotional activity.
- Deliver insight to support commercial negotiations and customer meetings.
- Act as the voice of the shopper and retailer within the wider organisation.
Candidate Requirements
- Experience within Category Management, Category Insights, Shopper Marketing, or Retail Buying/Merchandising.
- Strong understanding of the UK grocery retail environment.
- Experience working with syndicated data sources such as Circana, Kantar, Nielsen, or retailer loyalty card data.
- Proven ability to influence retailer decisions through insight and recommendation.
- Strong commercial acumen and understanding of category growth drivers.
- Excellent analytical, presentation, and storytelling skills.
- Advanced Excel and data interpretation capability.
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