Category Specialist - Meat

About the position

Founded in 1901, Feeser’s, Inc. is a family owned and operated full-line foodservice distributor located in Harrisburg, PA servicing the Mid-Atlantic region. Feeser’s provides an expansive offering of dry, refrigerated, and frozen products to a diverse customer base comprised of restaurants, healthcare facilities, educational facilities, and other institutions. The Category Specialist - Meat is responsible for purchasing all of the lines in their assigned category, that are essential to daily operations. Our business success and profitability are entirely contingent on our ability to procure high-quality and cost-effective products.

Responsibilities

• Purchase all lines in assigned category.
• Responsible for approximately 1,500 stock items from approximately 120-125 vendors.
• Forecast sales volume to maximize inventory turns.
• Develop strategies for new or updated products based on customer demand and product trends.
• Work with the marketing team and sales to promote products.
• Build industry partnerships to promote a category’s products.
• Monitor inventory levels, procure additional stock, and develop strategies for working with sales, brokers, marketing, and manufacturers to get rid of excess or unwanted inventory.
• Help to optimize warehouse storage for products.
• Create regular reports on product availability.
• Assess product and category strategies and develop solutions to improve performance.
• Evaluate vendor performance, quality, and costs.
• Choose the best suppliers for the category’s products.

Requirements

• Must have strong decision-making skills.
• Must have a basic understanding of the product life cycle and how to turn product ideas into goods that are efficiently made available or delivered to customers.
• Must be organized.
• Must be a self-starter who requires limited day-to-day direction.
• Must have strong analytical skills.
• Experience in productivity software (Microsoft Office).
• Candidates must possess a high school diploma or GED.
• A minimum of two to three years' experience in a meat purchasing role is required.
• Must be proficient in Microsoft Office products (Word, Excel, Outlook).

Nice-to-haves

• Experience utilizing an Enterprise Resource Platform (ERP) is preferred.