Job Description

Category Manager
Job title: Category Manager
Location: Foods UK, Leek
Salary: Generous salary depending on experience
Hours: 36.25 hours per week
Benefits: Matched pension scheme up to 8%, Generous holiday allowance increasing with length of service, Subsidised staff canteen, Company shop offering discounts on Ornua products, Sports & Social Club, Staff Lottery, Discount on Bikes & Tech Scheme, Confidential Employee Assist Programme, Free onsite parking
Ornua (meaning "new gold") is Ireland's largest exporter of Irish dairy products, proudly bringing the unique taste of Irish dairy to the world for over 55 years.
Are you a Category Specialist looking for the challenge of taking a mission driven organisation to its next level of success?
Ornua is actively seeking a strong negotiator and commercially aware Category Manager to join our Category team. As our Category Manager you will play a key role in driving profitable growth of our categories for our retail partners and Ornua, alongside driving overall category growth for our customers.
You will work as part of the multifunctional commercial team, providing category expertise, analysis, and recommendations to both internal and external stakeholders.
Why Ornua?

• Ornua operates from 10 business units worldwide, including 16 production facilities, and has sales and marketing teams working in-market across all four corners of the globe.
• The Group is structured across two divisions: Ornua Foods and Ornua Ingredients.
• Ornua Foods is responsible for the marketing and sales of Ornua's consumer brands including Kerrygold, Pilgrims Choice.
• Our co-operative ethos lies at the heart of how we do business as a purpose and values-led organisation, creating value for Irish dairy farming families.
• Our Values lie at the core of everything we do. Our five values encourage us to Seek and Embrace New Ideas, Make It Happen, Be Our True Selves, Show You Care, and Achieve Great Things Together.
• We invest in our people and foster a culture of continuous learning and improvement.
• Dynamic Working policy in place which facilitates flexible hours and hybrid working.
• Career Progression including Global Mobility opportunities.
• Comprehensive Benefits with regional specific offerings.

Why This Role Is Valuable:
The Category Manager is responsible for leading on;
Driving growth to our customers

• To identify and share, in an engaging and action orientated way, the latest category trends, the reasons behind market trends and the implications and opportunities for Ornua and our customers. Identify the size of the prize for various opportunities and assist in tracking performance against those targets.
• To make recommendations across all the marketing P's on how our customers can outperform the rest of the market based on customer and category insight.
• Supporting the development of Ornua's category strategy and the tailoring for customers
• Alignment and integration between the category strategy and the customer plan to deliver future growth
• To be the lead on range reviews from space, flow, assortment, and SKU distribution.
• Aligning pack design, pack communication and size to key usage occasions.
• To support business cases for NPD opportunities with our customers, and use IBP customer forums to support in driving business case to execution
• Carry out seasonal reviews (summer, Christmas etc) to identify future opportunities for growth
• Champion loyalty card data so it becomes more of the day to day and utilised to create compelling category stories and recommendations

Category Team

• Be a data agency Champion - optimizing agency performance and facilitating internal skills development to fully utilize the data/resource available
• Contribute to the monthly Category 'performance call' document and make retailer ready for your customer

Ornua Brands within our customers

• Support the Brand Team in driving the growth of Pilgrims Choice and Kerrygold within our customers

What You Bring To The Role:

• Highly numerate
• Strong analytical skills & proven ability to deliver actionable insight
• Able to articulate data concepts to a non-expert audience
• Advanced PowerPoint and Excel skills
• Advanced use of Kantar, IRI or Nielsen, plus customer loyalty data (dunnhumby / Sainsbury's SIP)
• Strong presentational skills
• Commercially aware

Our interview process is designed to be thorough yet supportive. This process includes a first stage via Teams to allow us to get to know you better and to understand your skills and experiences and, if successful, a second stage face-to-face interview that will build upon the first stage and give you the opportunity to get a feel for Ornua and the environment in which you will be working.
Ornua has ambitious growth plans and we're building a team to help enable and accelerate that growth. We are looking for people who share our values, are curious, forward-looking, take ownership and work together to build a future for themselves and Ornua.
Would you like to make an impact?
To learn more, please visit Ornua at
Ornua values diversity and inclusion and welcomes applications from candidates with diverse backgrounds. We also strongly encourage women and other underrepresented groups in the manufacturing industry to apply. Your unique perspectives and experiences are highly valued and will be instrumental in driving our company's continued success. Join us in shaping a more innovative, inclusive, and sustainable future.
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Skills Required