Merchandise Planner - Bakery jobs in Arlington, TX

Since 1987, the team at Cafe Valley has produced muffins, bundt cakes, ring cakes, loaf cakes, danishes, turnovers, croissants, and our signature Cafe Bites for our customers throughout the United States and across the world. Demand for our products have grown to the extent that our state-of-the-art, Phoenix, AZ production facility built in 2011 was joined by our Marion, IN production facility in 2014. Through innovative bakery techniques and unique recipes, we continue to delight one bite at a time.

We are looking for an Account Manager to manage existing retail accounts, and to expand our customer base to achieve sales quotas for the Central United States. To be successful in this role, you should have previous experience managing business development and customer relations for a consumer-packaged goods company while taking accountability for reaching sales targets. Our ideal candidate will combine excellent communication skills and high energy with a strategic mindset. Ultimately, you will be a part of a high-performance sales team, and through a collaborative approach, you will help ensure sales meets and exceeds the expectations of our business objectives and contributes to our company’s overall success in the long run.

Job Responsibilities

• Responsible for managing the overall product portfolio and attainment of sales goals.
• Proactively create new selling opportunities specifically focused on current accounts with the opportunity for new account development.
• Overall account management to include developing effective retail pull-thru marketing programs to support the needs of key retailers.
• Solid direction and leadership to Broker Partners on objectives and profitability expectations.
• Accurate and timely weekly sales reporting, focused on profitable growth with customers, brokers and marketplace information.
• Responsible for driving margin results that exceed the plan.
• Responsible for identifying and communicating service level challenges and developing action plan.
• Supports scheduling of products for optimal production and account performance.
• Interpret market data and trends.
• Responsible for providing pricing guides for all RFP’s.
• Collaborate with entire sales team on identifying annual sales objectives that support margin growth, with a keen eye for VCM drivers.
• Measure and analyze key performance indicators (VCM, ROI and KPIs)
• Develop sales budgets, understanding of costing models
• Analyze regional market trends and discover new opportunities for growth
• Ability to work on cross functional teams – Customer Service, R&D, Finance, Marketing
• Travel is required

Required Skills and Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Business or related field
• Minimum 2 years’ experience in consumer-packaged goods sales
• Experience calling on key supermarket retailers and distributors
• Bakery experience a plus
• Experience managing food brokers
• Strong organizational skills with a problem-solving attitude
• Strong understanding of account and item profitability
• Excellent negotiation and presentation skills
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Solid proficiency of MS Office Suite (Outlook, Excel, Power Point and Teams)
• Position is remote

EXPECTATIONS
Leads through positive influence. Manages as a member of a much larger team – “one-team”; demonstrates strong character and role models qualities such as motivation, inspiration, good judgment, and trust.