Category Manager - Cafe

As we continue our mission to make people and nature happy through re-inventing chocolate, we’re looking for a Category Manager – Café to join our Category Management Team on a permanent basis. We are a premium, innovative chocolate brand and cacao grower with 150+ stores and a strong digital presence, now embarking on a global expansion in 2025. As pioneers in product innovation, we are investing in category management to ensure that we continue to keep consumers and customers at the heart of our decisions.

By harnessing data and insight, we drive strategies that deliver a triple win, for our consumers, our customers, and our business - now and into the future. As Category Manager for our Café range, you will shape and lead strategies to drive category growth, profitability, and competitiveness. This is a commercially focused role overseeing all aspects of the product offer - from pricing and positioning to performance across channels.

Working closely with cross-functional teams, including Retail Operations, you will deliver a compelling, customer-focused range that aligns with broader business goals. We are looking for a results-oriented Category Manager with sharp commercial instincts and a collaborative mindset. If you are someone who can work seamlessly across teams to unlock growth opportunities whilst strengthening our competitive edge across specific product categories - then we’d love to hear from you!

As well as a competitive salary and a range of company benefits including private healthcare cover, enhanced maternity and paternity leave and Company pension contributions, you’ll receive 50% discount on products, and a 70% discount for you and your guests when you stay at our Rabot Estate hideaway on the paradise island of Saint Lucia.

Here at Hotel Chocolat, we’ve adopted hybrid working. This means you’ll join us on site for three days a week, and for the other two days – you can work from wherever you like! The on-site location for this role is our support office, ‘Mint House’, in Royston, Hertfordshire.

What you’ll be doing:

• Category Strategy Development and Execution: Develop and implement the Category Vision. You’ll build the strategy, oversee product assortment planning to ensure a balanced portfolio and identify potential improvements whilst developing a winning channel strategy to maximise reach and profitability.
• Analysis and Insights: Deliver rich and actionable insights that build brand differentiation for Hotel Chocolat and a strong commercial pipeline of innovation over a 24–36 month horizon. Analyse category performance data to identify growth and cost optimisation, regularly reviewing and adjusting the plan to maintain competitive advantage and meet financial targets.
• Product Lifecycle Management: Manage the product lifecycle from introduction to discontinuation, ensuring products remain competitive and aligned with category goals. Optimise the product assortment based on sales data, feedback, operational learnings and more.
• Pricing and Promotions: Develop and implement pricing strategies, working closely with the SRM pricing lead, merchandising and omnichannel to monitor and adjust pricing and promotional strategies based on performance and market conditions.
• Performance Tracking and Reporting: Create clear business cases and recommendations for portfolio reviews, setting KPIs and building forecasts through the new product launch process. Partner with the commercial finance team to track category profitability and ensure alignment with budgeting and forecasting processes.
• Product Innovation and Development: Identify and implement opportunities for product innovation, whether through NPD, modifications or 3rd party. Stay up to date on industry trends, emerging technologies to keep the category competitive and differentiated for Hotel Chocolat.
• Execution: Collaborate with marketing, omnichannel, procurement, supply and ops to ensure category strategies are executed seamlessly across Hotel Chocolat. Drive Sales: Explore new ways to commercialise Hotel Chocolat categories and open new channels.

Who you are:

• Demonstrable and proven experience within F&B management, café or restaurant category management, product management within an FMCG or multinational environment.
• Experience in delivering new concepts and developing existing offers in an F&B / retail environment.
• Proven track record of producing NPD, category growth, cost savings and innovation in a competitive market.
• Ability to analyse performance and integrate data-driven insights into processes and decision-making.
• Good knowledge of operations and L&D to ensure successful delivery.
• Demonstrable project management skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Bachelor’s degree (or similar) in business, hospitality, marketing, supply chain or a related field.

We’re one of the UK’s favourite premium chocolate brands, with a range of products spanning luxury gifts, alcohol and our pioneering drinking chocolate system, the Velvetiser. A cacao pod takes years to grow – it can’t be rushed if it’s going to be just right for our products. The same can be said for Hotel Chocolat, which originally started as a mint production company before we realised it was luxury chocolate that we were really passionate about. Now, we’re market leaders in the industry.

What began as an online-only business grew to over 140 stores across the UK, and we’re still growing… Today, we’re multi-category, multi-channel, and multi-territory, and our customers, colleagues, cacao farmers and suppliers all benefit from the success we make together.