Category Manager, Retail in Yorkshire

About McCain. At McCain, we are 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.

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. We're looking for a Category Manager to become a trusted partner for our core categories and the frozen food market. You'll play a pivotal role in turning consumer, market, and customer insights into real actions that unlock growth, while building strong relationships with both internal teams and external retail partners, in particular the major four multiples! This is a brilliant opportunity for someone who thrives on data, strategy, and collaboration - and who can bring passion and personality to every conversation.

Accountabilities:

• Analyse market and consumer data to spot trends, generate insights and translate them into growth opportunities.
• Work closely with the sales team to drive distribution and deliver against commercial plans.
• Build trusted relationships with customers, delivering impactful category reviews, range reviews and NPD sell-ins.
• Partner with ecommerce and commercial teams to develop and deliver online growth plans.
• Create and execute shopper activation plans aligned with McCain's Category Vision.
• Act as the category partner for a defined product area, ensuring insight-driven strategy, successful NPD launches and effective activation.

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.

What we're looking for:

• Experience analysing and interpreting data, and turning it into actionable recommendations.
• A background in Category Management within FMCG ideally.
• Strong relationship-building and influencing skills with both internal and external stakeholders.
• A clear understanding of route-to-market processes and shopper behaviour.
• The ability to manage projects, juggle priorities, and deliver results with pace.
• A curious, collaborative and resilient mindset, with a genuine customer focus.
• Experience with data providers (such as Circana and Kantar, Dunnhumby, Retail Link) and shopper marketing activity would be an advantage.

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.

The benefits of working for McCain. Although we do encourage you to taste the goods you'll be pleased to know we don't pay you in 'chips'. For working hard, you'll also get a great salary and some pretty good benefits including:

• 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.

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.