BLUE RICE - FMCG Talent Selection
Senior Category Manager
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Senior Category & Insights Manager
Fast Growing Branded and Own Label Drinks Supplier
Base Salary: Circa £65,000 – £70,000 plus £6,000 Car Allowance & Wider Benefits
Hybrid Working: 2 Days per week from the purpose-built offices/manufacturing facilities in the East Midlands with the remainder of the week with customers or working from home.
A unique opportunity to take strategic and operational control for a category & Insights function that spans Off Trade (Grocery), On Trade & International.
About the Role
As Senior Category & Insights Manager, you will play a key role in helping our client to turn market, shopper, customer and consumer insight into commercial growth. Reporting into the commercial function, you will work closely with Sales, Marketing and NPD to provide the insight, analysis and recommendations that shape commercial strategy across Grocery, Convenience, Hospitality and International.
You will be the go-to person for category and insight, helping the business understand not only what is happening in the market, but why it is happening, what it means for customers, and what we should do about it.
This is a highly commercial role. You will be expected to proactively identify risks and opportunities, quantify the size of the prize and turn insight into clear recommendations and actions that deliver profitable growth. As the category function continues to develop, you will also have the opportunity to help shape how Category & Insights operates within our client and how they use data and insight to make better commercial decisions. The ambition is to establish our client as a go-to category partner within premium soft drinks, providing customers with compelling insight and recommendations across range, distribution, space, location, promotion and availability.
Key Responsibilities
Category Strategy & Commercial Growth
- Develop and deliver category strategies and customer plans that support growth across UK Grocery, Convenience, Hospitality and International.
- Own and develop the category vision, ensuring it is embedded internally and brought to life with customers.
- Identify emerging category, shopper and consumer opportunities and proactively assess the potential impact on our client.
- Quantify the size of the prize for key opportunities and support the business in tracking performance against those opportunities.
- Translate category and consumer insight into clear commercial recommendations that can be acted upon by Sales, Marketing, NPD and our customers.
- Identify risks to future growth and proactively recommend actions to mitigate them.
Data, Insight & Storytelling
- Be the go-to person for category and insight across the business, including weekly and monthly performance reporting.
- Bring together multiple data sources to develop a clear understanding of market, category, shopper and customer performance.
- Go beyond reporting the numbers to understand what is driving performance and what we should do about it.
- Turn complex data sets into simple, compelling stories with clear commercial implications and recommendations.
- Develop creative approaches to sourcing insight, particularly where traditional category data is limited or unavailable.
- Actively use primary and secondary research, external data sources, consumer trends and continuous insight initiatives to understand changing consumer attitudes and behaviour.
- Identify and communicate the latest category and consumer trends, the reasons behind them and the implications and opportunities for customers.
- Develop appropriate approaches to supporting Impulse and International where data availability is less comprehensive than Grocery.
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Customer & Category Management
- Build and strengthen relationships with key customers, positioning as a credible and valuable category partner.
- Lead customer range reviews, including space, flow, assortment, distribution and post-review analysis.
- Develop category recommendations across the key commercial levers, including range, distribution, space, location, promotion and availability.
- Support the Sales team with compelling customer presentations, category stories and recommendations.
- Use customer-specific data and insight to identify opportunities for both the customer and organisation.
- Develop and maintain strong relationships with data providers, customers and external insight agencies.
Marketing & NPD
- Work closely with the Marketing team to develop annual brand and category plans.
- Work cross-functionally with Sales, Marketing and NPD to identify opportunities for innovation and ensure NPD initiatives are grounded in robust category, shopper and consumer insight.
- Support the development of commercially compelling propositions based on customer and category opportunities.
- Carry out regular reviews of brand performance, shopper marketing effectiveness and promotional performance to identify future growth opportunities.
Category Function Development
- Help shape the future development of the Category & Insights function.
- Establish clear, effective and commercially relevant reporting and insight processes.
- Work with internal teams to improve the use and understanding of category data across the business.
- Act as the data and insight champion, ensuring our client gets maximum value from external agencies, data sources and available resources.
- Support the development of internal capability so that Sales, Marketing and NPD teams can better utilise category and consumer insight.
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Key Requirements
- Significant category management experience within an FMCG environment, with strong commercial acumen.
- Proven experience of using category and shopper data to identify opportunities and drive commercial decisions.
- Experience of working with major UK retailers; experience with Tesco is highly desirable.
- Strong analytical skills, with the ability to work confidently across multiple data sources.
- Advanced Excel and PowerPoint skills.
- Strong experience using data sources such as Circana, Kantar, Nielsen/IRI and customer loyalty data such as dunnhumby or Sainsbury’s SIP.
- A strong storyteller who can turn complex data into a simple, compelling commercial narrative.
- The ability to move from data → insight → recommendation → action.
- Proactive and commercially curious, with the ability to identify opportunities rather than simply respond to requests.
- Strong communication, presentation and influencing skills, with the confidence to challenge and make recommendations.
- Able to build and maintain strong internal and external relationships.
- Comfortable working collaboratively across Sales, Marketing and NPD.
- Able to operate effectively in an environment where data availability differs between channels and where judgement and creativity are sometimes required alongside hard data.
- A genuine interest in consumers, shoppers, brands and the changing soft drinks market.
What’s on Offer
- Base Salary: Circa £65,000–£70,000
- Annual Bonus: 10%
- Car allowance: £6,000
- Holiday: 25 days per annum plus 8 bank holidays, with the option to buy additional holiday
- Pension: Up to 6% matched contributory pension scheme.
- Company sick pay scheme
- Enhanced maternity and paternity pay schemes
- Cycle to work scheme
- Free parking on site
- Employee Assistance Plan and Health Plan Scheme
- The opportunity to be part of a growing brand with heritage, ambition and drive
Location
Hybrid: 2 days per week at purpose built offices/production facilities in the East Midlands, with the rest of the week with customers or working from home. The ideal candidate will be based within commutable distance of the East Midlands.
The Process
Screening and Shortlisting is now underway with online and onsite interviews taking place in early-mid October.
Please email info@bluerice.co.uk for further information surrounding this opportunity. Job Ref - BR-1017-C&IM
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