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Category Manager, Category Strategy & Own Label
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Category Manager, Category Strategy & Own Label
Position Type: Regular - Full-Time
Requisition ID: 40337
About McCain
At McCain, we’re feeding the world: from French fries to Smiles, we contribute to the important role food plays in people's lives. That’s why we’re dedicated to ensuring our core values—Family, Authentic, Trusted, and Quality—shine through every day. As a privately owned family company with over 60 years of experience, a presence in more than 160 countries, and a global team of 22,000 people, our values and culture are at the heart of everything we do. We believe that we can work together, along with our business and community partners, to bring sustainable growth and positive change today, tomorrow, and for generations to come. Join us and see how you can MAKE IT at McCain!
Why Join the McCain Family
- Your Life – we’re here to help you fulfil your potential, flourish, and thrive in work and life.
- Your Success – work alongside passionate individuals who are committed to supporting your career ambitions, drive, and success.
- Your Impact – we want you to make a meaningful, lasting impact for you, for your colleagues, and for the business.
About the Role
In every role, McCainers are ambitious, curious, and interested in helping each other create good work experiences. We think about the customer and make doing business with McCain easy.
The Category Manager – Category Strategy & Own Label is a pivotal executional role, bringing category growth strategies to life across Retail and Foodservice channels. This role plays a key part in translating strategic direction into practical, customer- and consumer-led initiatives that accelerate growth for McCain.
- Working in close partnership with the Senior Category Manager and environment specialists, you’ll tailor category strategies and activation plans to the specific needs of each channel and customer environment.
- You’ll leverage robust data and insight to design, deliver and track initiatives that strengthen the commercial performance of McCain’s Own Label portfolio.
- You’ll also support the growth of McCain Group’s Own Label business in the UK, collaborating closely with UK and European commercial teams to develop locally relevant, consumer- and operator-led propositions. These propositions will align to both category and customer strategies, helping to deliver McCain’s growth ambitions across Retail and Foodservice.
- As a key point of contact for assigned customers, you’ll build best-in-class engagement, clearly articulate the value of McCain’s category propositions, and deliver data-led recommendations that create shared value for both McCain and its customers.
Leadership Principles
Our principles, each with related practices, guide our actions across the organisation. Together, they address how McCain interacts with our customers and employees, and how we work as individuals and collectively to find success. While each role adheres to the Leadership Principles, individual roles may focus more on a specific principle or principles.
- We are customer obsessed. Customers are our starting point. By understanding their needs and leveraging data and consumer insights, we drive mutual success.
- We think big and plan ahead. Through ambition, curiosity, and smart risks, we can accomplish goals, refine processes, and innovate to scale success.
- We bring out the best in our people. We create safe spaces for our people so that trust and empowerment come naturally. Inclusion is about listening first, showing humility, and working together.
- We act like owners. Together, we clear obstacles and do the work that makes us all successful and proud to be part of McCain.
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Accountabilities
Insight Development & Category Foresight
- Proactively analyse, synthesise and communicate insights from a broad range of data sources, including market, shopper, loyalty, panel, customer and operator data.
- Combine global trade flow, share and capacity data with local quantitative and qualitative insight to deliver robust competitor monitoring and performance reporting.
- Translate insight into clear foresight on trends, opportunities and risks—informing recommendations that drive growth for both customers and McCain.
Deliver Customer Category Growth Plans
- Execute category growth strategies in partnership with the Senior Category Manager and the wider Category Growth team.
- Work closely with environment and channel specialists to tailor initiatives for maximum impact across both Retail and Foodservice.
Enable Marketing, Innovation & Digital Effectiveness
- Support the development of new product, range and activation concepts that grow the Own Label portfolio, ensuring shared value for McCain, customers, consumers and operators.
- Contribute to the deployment and continual improvement of selling tools, using data and digital capability to increase customer engagement and effectiveness.
Lead Customer & Stakeholder Engagement
- Act as a trusted partner to key Retail and Foodservice customers, leveraging category expertise, the 3Cs framework and customer communication plans to build strong, value-added relationships.
- Collaborate with UK and European commercial and innovation teams to develop compelling, insight-led Own Label proposals for customer meetings, range reviews and new business development.
- Deliver clear, data-driven recommendations through category reviews, assortment optimisation, new product proposals and thought leadership initiatives.
- Build and maintain strong relationships across internal teams and with external analytics and data partners.
Apply Advanced Data & Analytical Capability
- Confidently query, interpret and translate complex data into actionable commercial recommendations.
- Leverage market research, loyalty card data, shopper panels and operator insights to inform category decisions.
- Bring curiosity and pace by exploring emerging technologies—such as AI-enabled tools—to improve accuracy, speed and impact of insight.
Qualifications
- 3–5 years’ experience in category management, insight, commercial support or product development within FMCG/CPG, ideally with exposure to Retail and/or Foodservice environments.
- A strong track record of turning consumer and market insight into action, with the ability to develop clear, commercially relevant recommendations.
- Advanced analytical capability, with hands-on experience using key data sources and tools, including:
- Retail: Kantar, Circana (formerly IRI/Nielsen), dunnhumby
- Foodservice: Lumina Intelligence, Circana CREST
- Additional tools: PowerBI, SAP BI, Excel and CRM platforms (e.g. Salesforce)
- Proven ability to query, interpret and synthesise complex data, translating insight into practical business and customer outcomes.
- Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the confidence to build effective relationships across internal teams and with external partners.
- A working knowledge of commercial frameworks across both Own Label and Branded propositions.
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Location
Being in the office every single day is a thing of the past. Here at McCain, we champion hybrid working. This means we don’t have a set expectation of exactly when you need to be in the office – however we do encourage our full-time, office-based people to connect in person with others for around half of their working time as that’s the best way for us to build and maintain our connections. Our head office (Customer Experience Centre) is on the outskirts of Scarborough – 1.5 hours away from Leeds City Centre, and about an hour from York. We have lots of colleagues who travel to and from our Experience Centre (even if it is just for a good coffee!) and because hybrid really does mean hybrid at McCain, they get the opportunity to collaborate with their colleagues when they’re in the office, and balance that with working from home to ensure they get a good life-work balance.
The Benefits of Working for McCain
- A generous Car Allowance
- An achievable yearly bonus based on personal performance.
- An excellent pension where we will pay double what you do, up to a maximum of 12% of your pay
- Flexible holidays – where you can buy & sell up to 5 days holiday per year
- Optional health cash plan
- Cycle to work scheme
- ‘Chips In’ Volunteering Day Off - to make a positive impact to the competitiveness, resilience, and long-term development of McCain communities across the globe
- And of course, being part of a Global business there are great opportunities to shine/thrive should you wish to relocate in the future. We have an ambitious 5-year growth plan that presents development & progression opportunities for those who seek it out.
The McCain Experience
We are McCain: this statement is about our power collectively and our importance individually—your impact is a significant part of the business. Our winning culture focuses on authenticity and trust so we can always bring out the best in our people. Here, you have the opportunity to learn, grow, and thrive while being yourself. Join our team to see why we’re better together.
#LI-OW1
McCain Foods is an equal opportunity employer. As a global family-owned company, we strive to be the employer of choice in the diverse communities around the world in which we live and work. We recognize that inclusion drives our creativity, resilience, and success and makes our business stronger. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, age, veteran status, disability, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law.
McCain is an accessible employer. If you require an accommodation throughout the recruitment process (including alternate formats of materials or accessible meeting rooms), please let us know and we will work with you to find appropriate solutions.
Your privacy is important to us. By submitting personal data or information to us, you agree this will be handled in accordance with McCain’s Global Privacy Policy and Global Employee Privacy Policy, as applicable. You can understand how your personal information is being handled here.
Job Family: Sales
Division: GB Commercial Foodservice
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