We are looking for an experienced grocery commercial professional to join us as an associate and provide hands‑on sales and account‑management support across selected Grocery Impact clients.
Grocery Impact helps ambitious food and drink brands geton the shelf, in the basket and on the map. We work with UK and international brands, helping them understand the UK grocery market, develop compelling retail propositions, win listings and build sustainable sales.
Many of the businesses we work with areearly‑stage or emerging brands with exciting and innovative propositions. They often have a strong product, a differentiated story and significant growth potential, but need experienced grocery expertise to help translate that into a compelling retailer proposition and sustainable commercial growth.
We need somebody who enjoys making things happen. You will work closely with the Grocery Impact Founders and our clients to:
- Win new grocery listings.
- Generate new sales opportunities.
- Build strong buyer relationships.
- Grow sales, distribution and rate of sale.
- Analyse account performance against KPI's and identify the right commercial actions.
- Keep opportunities moving through consistent and effective follow‑up.
THE ROLE
1. New business development and new listings
You will:
- Identify relevant grocery opportunities for our clients.
- Proactively approach buyers and commercial contacts.
- Develop warm relationships and confidently make cold approaches where required.
- Secure buyer meetings, range‑review opportunities and commercial conversations.
- Develop compelling buyer communications and proposals.
- Follow opportunities through from initial introduction to commercial outcome.
- Maintain momentum and ensure opportunities don’t stall.
- Support negotiations and the practical process of bringing new listings to market.
Persistence and follow‑through are important. We are looking for someone who is comfortable picking up the phone, reaching out to a new contact and continuing to progress an opportunity professionally even when the first answer isn’t forthcoming.
2. Buyer relationships and account growth
For selected Grocery Impact clients, you will take responsibility for managing and developing retailer accounts.
This will include:
- Building strong, credible relationships with buyers and commercial teams.
- Understanding the client’s overall growth plan and priorities.
- Reviewing retailer sales and account performance.
- Identifying opportunities to improve distribution, rate of sale and revenue.
- Developing new‑product and range‑extension opportunities.
- Supporting promotional and activation plans.
- Running regular account reviews.
- Agreeing clear actions and ensuring they happen.
- Identifying risks early and recommending solutions.
- Helping clients maximise the value of their existing listings and grow sales within existing accounts.
A key part of the role is being able to move comfortably betweenwinning new business and developing existing business.
3. Category‑led commercial thinking
Category thinking is fundamental to the way Grocery Impact works. We use data to demonstrate why an opportunity works for the retailer, the category and the shopper which is particularly important for emerging brands. Innovative products can be exciting, but buyers still need a clear commercial reason to list them.
You should therefore be comfortable:
- Working with sales, retailer and category data.
- Analysing performance against retailer KPIs.
- Understanding distribution, rate of sale, value and volume performance.
- Reviewing competitor ranges, pricing and promotions.
- Identifying category and range gaps.
- Translating data into clear commercial recommendations.
- Developing evidence‑led buyer arguments.
- Using insight to strengthen listing and account‑growth conversations.
You do not need to be a data analyst, but you do need to becommercially confident with numbersand understand how data supports good retailer decisions.
We are also looking for somebody who understands the practical reality of running grocery accounts.
Depending on the client, this may include:
- Retailer systems and portals.
- New‑line set‑up and new‑line forms.
- Promotional submissions and calendars.
- Retail media and activation.
- Pricing and cost‑price negotiations.
- Forecasting and sales planning.
- Supplier and SKU performance reporting.
- Managing retailer deadlines and critical paths.
- Working with distributors and wholesalers.
- Supporting launches and ensuring agreed activity is delivered.
You don’t need experience of every retailer system, but you should understand how much attention to detail successful grocery account management requires.
WORKING WITH EARLY‑STAGE AND GROWING BRANDS
A significant part of the opportunity is working with entrepreneurial food and drink businesses.
Some clients will already have major retail listings and need help accelerating performance. Others may be at a much earlier stage, with an innovative proposition but limited internal grocery experience.
You will need to be comfortable:
- Helping founders understand how grocery retailers think.
- Bringing structure to businesses that may still be developing their commercial processes.
- Translating an exciting product proposition into a clear retailer and category opportunity.
- Challenging constructively when a proposition, pricing model or commercial approach needs refining.
- Helping brands prioritise the opportunities most likely to deliver sustainable growth.
- Providing experienced commercial judgement without creating unnecessary complexity.
You should enjoy the energy and pace of entrepreneurial businesses and be comfortable operating where not everything is perfectly structured from day one.
USING AI AND WORKING SMARTER
Grocery Impact actively uses AI throughout our business.
We see it as an important tool for improving the quality and efficiency of our work rather than replacing commercial judgement or relationships.
We are looking for someone who is already comfortable using AI or is enthusiastic about adopting new ways of working.
You should be confident using AI to help:
- Research retailers, categories, brands and competitors.
- Prepare for buyer and client meetings.
- Analyse sales and category information.
- Draft compelling and personalised communications.
- Prepare proposals and presentations.
- Produce accurate meeting summaries and action plans.
- Improve the efficiency of everyday account management.
We still expect strong judgement, accuracy and personalisation.
THE OPTIMUM PERSON
We think the ideal person is likely to be an experiencedfood and drink Account Manager, National Account Manager or Senior National Account Manager who would now like to work more flexibly across a portfolio of interesting and innovative brands.
Alternatively, you may come from a buying, category management or sales consultancy background and have strong hands‑on customer‑management experience.
Ideally, you will have:
- Experience within UK food and drink/FMCG.
- Direct experience working with UK grocery retailers.
- Account‑management and sales‑development experience.
- A good understanding of how grocery buyers make decisions.
- Experience winning new business or new retail listings.
- Experience growing established retail accounts.
- Confidence using category and sales data.
- Good commercial and numerical judgement.
- Experience of range reviews, promotions and retailer processes.
- Strong communication and presentation skills.
- Confidence working directly with founders and senior commercial teams.
- Ideally, experience working with emerging, challenger or scaling brands.
And you will be:
Commercially curious
Self‑motivated
Credible with retailers
Relationship‑led
Practical
Highly organised
Comfortable with ambiguity
Above all, we are looking for someone who combinescommercial judgement, energy and action .
Someone who can analyse the numbers, understand the category opportunity, build the buyer story, make the contact and then keep driving the opportunity through to an outcome.
WORKING WITH GROCERY IMPACT
This is aself‑employed associate position working approximately 2–3 days per week .
The role is predominantly remote and we are very comfortable with flexible working. There will be occasions when you need to attend buyer, client or industry meetings in person. We would also ideally like the successful person to spendapproximately one day per month with the Grocery Impact team in St Albans, Hertfordshire or London , giving us the opportunity to work together face to face, share client priorities and plan ahead.
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