Brand Manager - Quick Meals Snacks & Soups

Job content

A great British food company
Premier Foods is one of Britain’s biggest listed food companies, employing over 4,000 colleagues at 15 manufacturing sites and offices up and down the country.
Many of our brands have been part of UK life for more than a century and you’ll find them in 94% of British households.

Brand Manager - Quick Meals, Snacks & Soup (QMS&S)
Based in St Albans

Purpose:
Opportunity for a talented and ambitious Brand Manager to join the Quick Meals, Snacks & Soups (QMS&S) Marketing team at Premier Foods, and take full ownership of the Nissin brand (including Soba & Cup Noodles) and Sharwood’s and New Brands’ presence within the Quick Meals category.

• Full ownership of the Nissin brand: The Nissin portfolio, comprising of Soba and Cup Noodles, is the fastest growing brand in the market, achieving sales of c.£20m in the latest 52 weeks. It is an exciting time to join the team to develop and land plans to

continue Nissin’s phenomenal rate of growth working closely with Nissin Foods, the world’s biggest manufacturer of instant noodles and a strategic partner of Premier Foods

• Build & Grow Sharwood’s & New Brands: As part of our ambitious growth plans for the QMS&S category this role is also responsible for developing our marketing leading cooking sauce brand Sharwood’s presence in the QMS&S category as well as

introducing new brands to market, tapping into un-met consumer needs

• Full Marketing Mix Experience This role offers a great opportunity to be involved across the marketing mix both in your direct portfolio or through working with the Marketing Controller on Batchelors (#1 brand in the category) projects including but not

limited to innovation, comms development, packaging development, ATL and BTL activation, research & insights

What you’ll be doing:

• Financials and business analysis:

o Manage P&L, including monthly performance reporting, identification of key performance drivers, pricing & promotion recommendations.
o Monitor, analyse & report on external performance and competitor activity to identify risks and opportunities.

• Brand communications:

o Lead all BTL activity such as shopper marketing, sampling & digital activation, PR programs, co-ordinating brand communication materials such as in-store POS, website & images for external customers.
o Support development of ATL comms and work with Nissin strategic partners to ensure best-in-class launch in UK
o Manage consumer marketing spend and budget, including planning and reporting

• Innovation and Project management:

o Full accountability for delivering Brand led NPD/EPD projects (e.g. flavour/variant extensions, product/pack updates,etc.) through internal approval processes
o Includes: developing winning concepts & product & packaging delivered against this; leading the cross functional project team; building the commercial business case; creating launch plans; working with commercial functions to develop compelling retailer sell-in story, working with Nissin team to ensure successful long-term innovation pipeline
o Support Senior Innovation Manager on longer-term NPD projects.

• Brand Planning (lead for Nissin, Sharwood’s & New Brands)

o Implement the in-year marketing plan & developing course-correction in year.
o Development of forward strategy & winning plan to grow the portfolio

• Key Contact for Nissin Europe Team and Internal Stakeholders

o Day to day contact and key expert for Nissin team as well as internal stakeholders for portfolio
o Key contact with factories working through the plans and ensure cross functional working

What we need from you:

• FMCG experienced Assistant / Brand Manager
• Project management experience is a must, experience working with licensing or distributor partners is preferred but not essential
• Passion
• Passionate about marketing and brands
• Communicate plans that will motivate, build commitment and excite the business
• Delivering commitments and accountabilities
• Commercially competent and able to interpret data to provide assessments and recommendations
• Understand key drivers within a brand P&L
• Develop a clear strategic plan against annual deadline
• Strong project management skills and ability to prioritise
• Prepared to roll sleeves up & learn on the job
• Must be a self-starter, seeing opportunities and digging into them to present recommendations
• Must be able to operate in a fast-paced, multi tasking environment
• Doing the Right Things
• Build a common vision for the brand to drive growth and profitability
• Drive for results
• Empowering and developing people
• Build strong connection with internal teams (e.g. Innovation, Sales, Factories, & other key stakeholders)
• Communicate effectively with strategic partner as well as external agencies & internal stakeholders
• Focus on customers and consumers
• Understand the competitive environment
• Understand and deliver customer expectations and requirements
• Balance operational efficiency with consumers needs

What we can offer you in return:
Competitive salary
Car allowance
Bonus
Up to 7.5% pension
Private medical insurance
Life assurance
Wide range of online and in-house training
Access to an employee discount scheme, with access to hundreds of nationwide retailers
Our much-loved brands include Mr Kipling, Cadbury, Bisto, Batchelors, Ambrosia, Sharwood’s, Oxo, Loyd Grossman, Homepride and McDougall’s, with some supported by our strategic partnerships with Mondelez and Nissin.