Job Description
We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. Here, everything in our stores starts out in Food Commercial. Whether it’s the product, proposition, packaging or price, or the fact that something tastes great, our team is responsible for all food items available in store, digitally and on demand. You’ll discover it’s incredibly fast-paced. People here are in it together and not afraid to take risks. They’re enthusiastic too, and their amazing leadership team is right behind them. The knowledge and experience you gain here could set you up for career moves, anywhere else in the business. So, if you’re passionate about food and just as hungry to learn, you’ll fit in perfectly.

At the core of Food for Later is the Category Planning & Ranging team. We are responsible for optimising and delivering the category and overall Food Commercial strategy in Food for Later through key events, secondary space, in the aisle and across channels. Every day we champion our customers, spot new commercial opportunities, and consider the impact on store colleagues to orchestrate a delicate balancing act that drives our team to greater success.

The successful candidate will be forward-thinking and insightful, with a commercial mind-set. You will have strong project management skills and a highly organised approach. Your first thought will always be the customer, and your can-do approach will help move things at pace, with a proven track record of both data-led decision-making and great intuition. Your central role to our plan means that you will need to have excellent influencing skills and a very adaptable style, to support making things happen for the category and for Fresh.

What you need to do

Planning and execution of the Food for Later Category Plan
Support cross functional category teams and teams across other divisions in implementation of Food for Later category workstreams
Lead our flexible space strategy, performance and execution
Optimise growth of Food for Later through all channels by building close relationships with the wider business to help you spot opportunities for mutual success
Work alongside a range of stakeholders from Buyers through to Marketing, Nectar360 and Space teams and external teams in our supply base to implement category strategy
Lead our relationship with Insights to keep the category team abreast of all customer, market and category knowledge that will impact our strategy or provide new opportunities for growth
Support Nectar360 & our buying teams to maximise activation that drives performance metrics
Work with the Head of Category Planning to support ongoing category strategy development, and delivery of key projects
Support and grow your team by role modelling our valued behaviours, setting clear direction, and coaching them through challenges, with a clear focus on their development and wellbeing
Balance week to week performance optimisation with longer term (12 months plus) strategic planning

What you need to know and show

Proven customer-centricity, with a solid foundation in insights across qualitative and quantitative sources, including EPOS & Panel data
Analytical and hypothesis-led approach to problem solving, capable of interpreting multiple complex sources and communicating the ‘so what?’ simply and impactfully
Commercially astute with laser-sharp focus on delivering against KPIs
Excellent stakeholder management, able to build strong relationships across all levels of seniority and deliver through cross-functional teams
Efficient and organised, thrives off planning and coordinating, with experience of successful project management
Relentless focus on spotting opportunities for improvement
Resilient to working with high degree of ambiguity and changing priorities
Ability to think strategically and link ideas together with the support of data and analysis

What decisions I can make including budget

Ownership of the Food for later Category plan and process, from conception through to activation in stores
Influencing of wider category through insight, analysis and projects

Directly or indirectly manages

Team of 2 Category Planners (C4)

Support we will provide

Category expertise through Trading (buyers, range analysts, category assistants, merchandisers, category planners), Supply Chain, Technical & Development
Corporate, BU, Category and customer insights & tools
Corporate development offer, both behavioural and technical
We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new — whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business – and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:

Starting off with colleague discount, you’ll be able to save 10% on your shopping online and instore at Sainsbury’s, Argos, TU and Habitat, and we regularly increase the discount to 15% at points during the year. We’ve also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You’ll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 20% of salary, depending on how we perform.

Your wellbeing is important to us too. You’ll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy up to an additional week’s holiday, and we provide private heathcare. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, interest free car loan of up to £10k, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, salary advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an Employee Assistance Programme.

Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave.

Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibiity criteria may apply).

Apply here