Senior Commercial Manager

Senior Commercial Manager – Food Manufacturing

Location: Berkshire (Hybrid)
Salary: £70,000 - £80,000 + car allowance/company car + bonus

The Opportunity

We are partnering with a well-established and growing UK food manufacturer to recruit a Senior Commercial Manager into its Retail division.

This is a significant commercial role with responsibility for a significant portfolio of major grocery customers, with further growth already identified. The wider Retail division currently generates a high proportion of the groups revenue with ambitions to grow targets, supported by continued investment in manufacturing capability and capacity.

The business is looking for someone who can go beyond traditional account management. You'll be expected to strengthen strategic customer relationships, identify opportunities to grow existing accounts and create proactive, forward-looking customer strategies that increase the manufacturer's share of business.

While the immediate opportunity is predominantly around unlocking further growth from established strategic customers, there is also scope to identify and develop new commercial opportunities, whether that's entering new categories with existing retailers, winning incremental product lines or developing relationships with new customers. Importantly, this role also offers genuine progression, so we are looking for candidates who are continuing their upward trajectory.

The Role

You'll take full commercial ownership of a portfolio of major UK grocery customers, with responsibility for sales, gross margin, profitability and longer-term customer strategy.

A key priority will be taking a more proactive approach to account development. Rather than simply responding to retailer briefs and managing existing business, you'll build a clear understanding of each customer's strategy, category priorities and future requirements, using this insight to identify where the manufacturer can grow.

You'll create and execute strategic account plans, build relationships across buying, commercial, technical, category and NPD teams and develop a pipeline of profitable growth opportunities. This could include extending existing ranges, entering new categories, securing incremental NPD, identifying whitespace opportunities or winning entirely new customer business.

You'll take ownership of opportunities from initial identification through to commercialisation, building the internal business case, developing the customer proposition and coordinating the cross-functional teams required to deliver.

The business is highly innovation-led, so NPD and EPD will form another major part of the role. You could have approximately 15 projects live at any one time, taking commercial ownership of the critical path and ensuring products move successfully from customer brief through development and ultimately onto shelf.

You'll also lead customer negotiations and major retailer tenders across pricing, volumes, trading terms and wider commercial agreements. This will require a strong understanding of customer profitability and the ability to balance revenue growth against margin, operational complexity and manufacturing capacity.

Internally, you'll work extensively with Operations, Planning, NPD, Technical, Procurement, Category and Finance. You'll need to influence stakeholders who don't report to you, challenge where necessary and ensure the organisation delivers against its customer commitments.

About You

We're looking for an established food commercial professional with strong UK grocery retail experience.

The successful candidate will have:

* Degree educated as a minimum

* Significant experience as a Senior National Account Manager, Commercial Manager or equivalent within a food manufacturing environment.

* Strong own-label grocery experience and a detailed understanding of the relationship between retailers and their manufacturing partners.

* Direct experience managing major UK grocery multiples, with exposure to one of the UK's largest supermarket groups particularly attractive.

* Responsibility for a substantial customer portfolio and full or significant P&L ownership, including sales, gross margin and profitability.

* Clear evidence of delivering profitable account growth rather than simply maintaining established customer relationships.

* Experience creating and executing strategic account plans and Joint Business Plans that have delivered measurable commercial growth.

* A proactive approach to account development, with evidence of identifying whitespace, increasing share of customer, winning additional categories or securing incremental product listings.

* Experience developing a pipeline of new commercial opportunities, whether through entirely new customers, new categories within existing customers or significant NPD wins.

* Strong commercial judgement and the ability to assess opportunities based on margin, volume, capacity, cost-to-serve and longer-term strategic value rather than revenue alone.

* Experience leading major retailer tenders and complex customer negotiations covering areas such as pricing, cost-price increases, volumes, MOQs and trading terms.

* Strong NPD and EPD experience, ideally within an own-label environment where retailer briefs and customer deadlines drive the development process; as well as strong creativity and innovation mindset.

* Excellent project-management capability and experience coordinating multiple product launches and commercial projects simultaneously.

* Extensive cross-functional experience across areas such as NPD, Technical, Operations, Supply Chain, Planning, Procurement, Category and Finance.

* Strong commercial numeracy and confidence interpreting P&Ls, forecasts, customer data and category information to inform decisions.

* The ability to build credible relationships with senior retailer stakeholders while also influencing and constructively challenging colleagues internally.

* A resilient, highly organised and detail-focused approach, with the ability to manage changing priorities and remain effective when customer or operational challenges arise.

* Commercial curiosity and strategic thinking – someone who naturally looks beyond today's account performance and asks where the next opportunity will come from.

* Leadership potential and the ambition to take on broader responsibility beyond an individual customer portfolio