Purchasing Supply Chain Manager

Job Title: Purchasing & Supply Chain Manager

Location: In-Office and/or Remote | Regular travel to SF + industry/supplier travel

About the Company

Our company is an independently owned regional foodservice distributor serving healthcare, education, community foodservice, contract feeders, restaurants, and other foodservice customers throughout [Region]. For decades, the organization has built its business around responsiveness, strong relationships, and exceptional service. Today, the company is investing in the people, systems, and capabilities that will allow it to scale thoughtfully and profitably while maintaining its agility.

The Opportunity

We are seeking an experienced, analytical, and hands-on Purchasing & Supply Chain Manager to own purchasing, demand and inventory planning, supplier strategy, inbound supply, and purchasing-related margin performance.

This is a player-coach role with portfolio-wide responsibility. The position will be accountable for product availability and purchasing performance across the entire assortment while balancing customer service, margin, working capital, warehouse capacity, and supply risk.

The ideal candidate already knows foodservice distribution, foodservice products, and the supplier landscape. You should understand the products you are buying, know the manufacturers, brokers, and suppliers serving the industry, and bring relationships and product knowledge that allow you to contribute quickly.

The assortment is primarily frozen today and also includes refrigerated and dry products, with planned expansion in refrigerated categories, including dairy. This is not a single-category buying role; you will work across the entire portfolio and need the breadth to make informed purchasing and sourcing decisions across a wide range of foodservice products.

Day-to-day purchasing and administrative support is in place, but this role requires firsthand command of the business and accountability for outcomes. You will work directly in ERP software, Excel, and item-level data; make purchasing and inventory decisions; manage suppliers and programs; and execute POs when needed.

As processes strengthen and the team develops, the focus should increasingly shift toward higher-value work including inventory optimization, strategic sourcing, supplier economics, buying group opportunities, margin improvement, and building a scalable purchasing and supply chain function.

What You'll Own

Purchasing, Planning & Inventory

• Own purchasing, forecasting, replenishment, inventory strategy, and product availability across the business.
• Translate historical demand, customer forecasts, seasonality, new business, sales intelligence, and other demand signals into purchasing plans.
• Work directly in [Inventory Planning System] and ERP software to evaluate forecasts, purchasing recommendations, inventory positions, safety stock, lead times, order cycles, and exceptions.
• Balance service levels with inventory turns, working capital, warehouse capacity, margin, and supply risk.
• Proactively address potential stockouts, excess and aging inventory, and changing demand.
• Establish effective planning rhythms connecting purchasing, sales, operations, and leadership.

Multi-Category Product Portfolio

• Own purchasing and inventory performance across the complete product assortment, rather than one specialized category.
• Manage an assortment that is primarily frozen, with refrigerated and dry products representing meaningful parts of the business and continued expansion planned in refrigerated products, including dairy.
• Bring broad commercial knowledge of foodservice products, including frozen fruits and vegetables, bulk foodservice ingredients, proteins and meats, breads and bakery, refrigerated and dairy products, and dry goods.
• Apply understanding of major manufacturers and brands, brokers and suppliers, pack sizes and formats, product specifications, comparable products and substitutions, and sourcing considerations that affect purchasing decisions.
• Maintain enough breadth to intelligently manage the entire portfolio and the ability to go deeper when a particular category, product, or sourcing issue requires it.

Strategic Sourcing & Supplier Management

• Bring and continue to develop established relationships within the foodservice manufacturer, broker, supplier, and vendor community, particularly within frozen food.
• Maintain an active understanding of manufacturers, product lines, brokers, alternative sources, and emerging opportunities.
• Own key supplier relationships and continually evaluate sourcing alternatives.
• Negotiate product cost, terms, freight, service expectations, and commercial programs.
• Use product knowledge to identify appropriate alternatives and substitutions.
• Manage supplier performance and proactively address supply risks.
• Identify sourcing opportunities that improve margin while protecting product quality and customer service.

Supplier Food Safety & Compliance

• Own the purchasing-side process for ensuring new and existing suppliers meet food safety and supplier-approval requirements.
• Ensure required supplier documentation is collected, current, complete, and properly maintained during new-vendor onboarding and the annual supplier review process.
• Coordinate collection of applicable third-party food safety certifications/audits, HACCP or Preventive Controls documentation, insurance, and other required supplier records.
• Proactively manage document expirations and outstanding requirements so supplier files remain current and audit-ready.
• Partner with food safety and operations to resolve documentation gaps, compliance concerns, or corrective actions.
• Ensure new suppliers and products complete required approval processes before introduction into the business.

Buying-Group Strategy

• Own strategic engagement with [Foodservice Buying Group] and ensure full leverage of membership value.
• Understand and optimize available purchasing programs, supplier relationships, rebates, allowances, incentives, and sourcing opportunities.
• Build productive relationships with buying group representatives, manufacturers, brokers, and strategic suppliers.
• Proactively use the buying group network to improve sourcing, supplier access, purchasing economics, and vendor income.
• Prepare strategically for buying group meetings and events, identify priority opportunities and partners, and ensure disciplined follow-through.

Rebates, Supplier Programs & Margin Recovery

• Own the financial performance of supplier rebate, allowance, billback, and purchasing incentive programs, ensuring the company captures all available earnings and gross-margin opportunities.
• Ensure programs are accurately established in the ERP, including eligible products, terms, rates, and effective dates.
• Ensure new and revised programs are entered promptly and expiring programs are proactively reviewed, renewed, replaced, or updated.
• Monitor program performance and validate that qualifying activity is being captured correctly.
• Ensure supplier funds are calculated, billed, collected, and reconciled accurately and on time.
• Review expected versus actual earnings to identify missed rebates, underpayments, setup errors, expired programs, or other opportunities to recover margin.
• Partner with Finance and administrative support on billing, reconciliation, and recordkeeping while retaining overall accountability for program accuracy and financial capture.
• Continually identify additional manufacturer, supplier, broker, and buying group programs that can improve gross margin.

Inbound Supply & Freight

• Integrate inbound freight decisions with purchasing and sourcing strategy.
• Evaluate freight, consolidation, order quantities, and sourcing alternatives based on total landed cost.
• Maintain visibility into inbound shipments and proactively address delays, shortages, substitutions, and supply disruptions.
• Align purchasing and inbound activity with warehouse receiving capacity and operational priorities.

Team, Systems & Continuous Improvement

• Lead and develop existing purchasing support while maintaining strong day-to-day execution.
• Independently evaluate current purchasing practices and determine what should continue, improve, or change.
• Establish clear roles, accountability, SOPs, and operating rhythms.
• Be an active user of ERP software, Excel, and other analytical tools.
• Analyze SKU-, vendor-, category-, and customer-level data to identify risks and opportunities.
• Improve forecasting parameters, data quality, reporting, workflows, and system utilization.
• Develop team capabilities and simplify or automate transactional work so the function can increasingly focus on higher-value activities.

Remote Work & Travel

• This is a remote role with meaningful responsibility for a physical operation in [Regional Hub].
• Core operations team generally works 6:00 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. PT, and this role must maintain substantial availability and overlap during those hours.
• Travel to [Regional Hub]: Generally once a month, with more frequent onsite time expected during the initial onboarding period.
• Onsite operations: Build strong working relationships with the warehouse and operations team, understand the physical flow of the business, and connect purchasing decisions to inventory, receiving, storage, and operational realities.
• Buying group and industry events: Attend relevant meetings and events to develop relationships and identify opportunities.
• Suppliers and strategic partners: Travel when in-person engagement can materially advance a relationship, sourcing opportunity, negotiation, or strategic priority.

What Success Looks Like

• Strong, consistent product availability across the portfolio.
• Inventory appropriately balanced against demand, working capital, warehouse capacity, margin, and supply risk.
• Improved inventory turns and reduced excess and aging inventory.
• Strong forecasting and earlier visibility into demand and supply changes.
• Measurable purchasing-driven margin improvement.
• Strong supplier relationships, performance, and sourcing alternatives.
• Full and timely capture of available rebates, billbacks, allowances, incentives, and other purchasing-related income.
• Meaningful financial and strategic value from buying group membership.
• Supplier food safety documentation that is complete, current, and audit-ready.
• Effective inbound freight and landed-cost management.
• Strong systems, processes, accountability, and data-driven decision-making.
• A capable purchasing team with increasing independence.

Qualifications & Experience

Required

• Meaningful purchasing experience within foodservice distribution.
• 7+ years of progressive experience in purchasing, procurement, category management, inventory management, demand/supply planning, or related supply chain functions, including significant foodservice distribution experience.
• Broad foodservice product knowledge across multiple categories, including meaningful familiarity with frozen products and the broader frozen foodservice landscape, as well as bulk ingredients, proteins and meats, breads and bakery, refrigerated and dairy products, and dry goods.
• Understanding of foodservice product specifications, pack formats, manufacturers and brands, sourcing channels, comparable products, and substitutions.
• Established relationships within the foodservice manufacturer, broker, supplier, and vendor community, with particular familiarity with the frozen food segment.
• Experience purchasing and managing inventory across multiple foodservice categories.
• Strong hands-on experience with forecasting, replenishment, inventory management, supplier performance, product availability, pricing, and cost analysis.
• Strong analytical capability, including advanced Excel skills and experience working directly with ERP and forecasting/replenishment systems.
• Experience negotiating commercial terms, evaluating sourcing alternatives, and understanding total vendor economics.
• Strong understanding of inventory turns, fill rate/service levels, working capital, freight and landed cost, rebates/billbacks, and margin.
• Ability to work independently in a remote environment while remaining highly connected and responsive to a fast-moving physical operation.
• Ability to maintain substantial availability during core 6:00 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. PT hours and travel as required.

Strongly Preferred

• Experience within a larger or sophisticated foodservice distribution organization, with exposure to established purchasing, replenishment, inventory-planning, supplier-management, and analytical practices.
• Foodservice buying-group experience
• Experience with [Inventory Planning System] or a comparable forecasting/replenishment platform.
• Leadership experience through formal people management, mentoring, training, cross-functional leadership, or ownership beyond an individual book of business.

Who Will Thrive Here

You already know foodservice purchasing. You know the products, understand the supplier landscape, and have relationships within the industry. When you encounter a product requirement, you have a working knowledge of the manufacturers, brokers, alternatives, specifications, and sourcing considerations.

You're equally comfortable investigating an item-level forecast, working through a PO, calling a broker or manufacturer, analyzing a stockout, negotiating an opportunity, and stepping back to determine whether the underlying process should change.

You don't view hands-on work as inconsistent with leadership—but you also know how to build processes, technology, and people so you don't remain buried in transactions.

For someone coming from a larger organization, this is an opportunity to bring the expertise you've developed in a sophisticated foodservice purchasing environment into a growing business where you can have significantly broader ownership and visible impact.