Commercial Manager

Vacancy at The Felix Project

Commercial Manager

Salary £ 36,000 - £38,000

London

Details

The Felix Project and FareShare have recently merged to form the UK's largest food redistribution charity. Its vision is a UK where good food is never wasted, and nobody goes hungry. 

The organisation rescues high quality edible surplus food, from across the food industry and gets it to over 8,000 organisations across the UK who are working to strengthen communities and improve lives. 

The charity manages seven depots across London, Suffolk, Merseyside and Hampshire and works with 16 network partners who operate a further 26 regional depots across the UK. 

Over the next year our ambition is to rescue enough food nationally to provide nearly 200 million meals, turning an environmental problem into social good with measurable impact for people, planet, and the economy.

Commercial Manager will identify, develop and manage top food partners relationships and strengthen existing business relationships with companies in the food industry, generating value for the partner and to secure growing and sustainable volumes of surplus food for the FareShare Network. For designated top food partners, you will be their day-to-day point of contact with regular face to face contact at all levels. 

You will undertake structured, strategic account management, leading and coordinating FareShare’s engagement across our organisation. This will mean agreeing and executing a bespoke joint business plan with each account to get more food, money and strategic support. You will also feedback on ways that we can better support our accounts and improve our services to them. You will work directly and be on-site with top food partners to help identify and overcome the barriers which exist to giving surplus food to people in need as well as increasing money and strategic resource. 

You will also be required to work closely with FareShare colleagues within FareShare and across the UK in our partner organisations in order to identify and understand opportunities for creating mutual and shared value.

• Contribute to the development of consistent, structured Joint Business plans with 

designated accounts that take into account food, funding and other strategic initiatives to drive growth in food, money and other strategic resources

• Work on behalf of the account to develop and embed services relevant to the account and agreed through the joint business plan – e.g. employability or store level redistribution  

• Execute joint business plans and report internally and externally on progress. 

• Research and understand your accounts, including key ESG initiatives, waste streams, key personnel within the organisation that will help drive its success and engage the relevant internal departments through both desked based research and face to face contact. 

• Proactively drive account forwards and progress these relationships with regular on-site visits and linking FareShare exec with key contacts. 

• Keep up to date with industry and charity insights and ensure this is reflected back strategically across ways of working and account management.

• Be responsible for managing and communicating key projects and initiatives to increase food volumes and strategic value, securing support from a range of stakeholders within food partners and across the FareShare network.  

• Work closely with Supply Chain and Logistics, Operations and Network Development teams with the aim of optimising food out to our network 

• Develop and lead FareShare cross-departmental strategic activity to enable us to derive maximum value from key food partners including liaising with fundraising, marketing and volunteering teams.

• Demonstrable experience managing multiple accounts in the FMCG, food, retail or 

comparable sector with professionalism and integrity consistently meeting or exceeding challenging targets 

• Good working knowledge of the key players across the food industry and their ways of 

working  

• Successful track record of managing cross-functional projects to tight timescales and 

budgets, ensuring involvement of all key stakeholders 

• Ability to develop and maintain effective working relationships at a range of levels and 

across multiple functions with a variety of internal and external stakeholders. 

• Ability to use own initiative working independently and responsibly  

• Experience of working in a retail or food industry sector  

• Experience of project evaluation, data-driven analysis and impact reporting 

• Relationship and stakeholder management experience of large corporate partners 

• Knowledge of and interest in Sustainable Development, Corporate Social Responsibility and experience of its application within the business environment.

At FareShare, we are committed to promoting equality, diversity, and inclusion in everything we do. We value the unique contributions of every individual and strive to create a respectful, inclusive environment free from discrimination or prejudice. Our commitment extends to all employees, and volunteers, ensuring equal opportunities for everyone, regardless of background or characteristics. 

Once you apply, you will be directed to our recruitment portal. Please upload your CV and a covering letter outlining your suitability for the role and make sure that they are both uploaded before submitting your application. After you have submitted your application, you have 24 hours in which you can access your application and make edits. We will only consider applications with both CV and cover letter submitted. 

We reserve the right to close advertisements early and we might assess candidates and arranging interviews as applications comes in, so please apply as soon as possible, to avoid missing out on this opportunity. 

Due to the anticipated large number of applicants, if you do not hear from us within four weeks of your application, we regret to inform you that your application has been unsuccessful. Consequently, will not be able to provide feedback.