Technical Account Manager in Bristol

Thistle Seafoods is one of the largest family owned manufacturers of quality seafood products in Europe. We supply outstanding products at every price point to leading retail and food service customers within the UK, Europe, USA, Canada and Australia. Our Head Office is based in Peterhead in the North-East of Scotland, and our second site based in Uddingston in the outskirts of Glasgow. Thistle Seafoods has a fast-paced, challenging, and inclusive working environment. Employees work extremely hard and take great pride in the work they do. We believe in providing all staff with the opportunity to develop and progress and we actively encourage internal promotion.

The Technical Account Manager is required to build and maintain strong relationships with the company’s customer base. The post holder will predominantly be responsible for managing the technical aspects for one customer. However, there will be a requirement for the post holder to have a sound understanding of all the company’s customers, to enable them to aid the Commercial Department as required.

• Manage customer accounts on a day-to-day basis.
• Build a strong technical relationship with the customer’s technical team to facilitate the exchange of technical information and to support the customer.
• Provide a full technical service which satisfies customer needs.
• Maintain all customer specific documentation, including QAS documents and mini specifications.
• Prepare customer specifications and liaise with the customer’s technical team to ensure that the specification is completed accurately, approved, reviewed and issued in a timely manner.
• Work with Commercial and NPD teams to deliver on time product launches.
• Work with technical systems to ensure new suppliers and ingredients are onboarded in a timely manner.
• Fully understand and communicate all customer technical requirements including Standards and Codes of Practice to all relevant people within the business.
• Check and sign off all artwork.
• Co-ordinate and attend all customer technical visits to the site.
• Respond to customer complaints following their investigation by the Factory Technical Manager.
• Complete trend analyses for customer complaints.
• Provide support throughout the NPD process including when there are product, ingredient and packaging changes.
• Hold regular technical and quality reviews with the Technical Team to ensure that ongoing compliance to all customer standards are met whilst delivering continuous improvement.
• Attend and contribute to foreign body/complaint reduction meetings.
• Participate in the company’s internal auditing programme.
• Ensure the Autocoding database is maintained and updated in line with product/packaging changes.
• Ensure Recipe Professor is managed effectively by working closely with NPD as well as other relevant teams.
• Support and actively promote brand integrity and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by ensuring there is engagement and communication between teams, customers and suppliers that continually drives improvement.
• Undertake tasks as directed by the Directors and/or Senior Managers.

• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills (written and verbal).
• Strong planning and organisational skills with a sense of priority for deadlines and attention to detail.
• Excellent decision making and problem-solving skills.
• A passion for delivering an outstanding customer experience.
• Ability to be flexible to meet business needs.
• A passion for delivering results and the drive to exceed expectations.
• A team player.
• Self-motivated and a strong commitment to personal development.
• Professional approach and attitude.

• Previous experience working in a technical role is desirable but not essential.
• Previous experience of working in the food industry would be advantageous.

• Ideally educated to a degree level or equivalent.
• Level 3 Award in Food Safety in Manufacturing.
• Level 3 Award in HACCP in Food Manufacturing.

Normal contractual hours of work will be 40 hours per week. Working times will vary and will depend on the demands of the role and the needs of the business. However, it is anticipated normal working hours will be 8.00am to 5.00pm Mondays to Fridays inclusive with an unpaid lunch break of one hour.

If you would like to be considered for this excellent opportunity, then please upload your CV to this job post. No agencies. Your speculative emails will be deleted. We currently have preferred partners.