National Account Manager - Western Canada

Trophy Foods is Canada's leading supplier of high-quality edible nuts, dried fruit and confectionery products. We pride ourselves on providing the highest quality products, at the best value, through our direct channel of global grower relationships.

Trophy Foods Inc. is Canadian owned and operated with over 40 years of experience in serving our customers. We produce edible nuts, dried fruits, confectionery and bulk foods under our Trophy brand. We also work with grocery retailers, mass merchandisers, drug channel, and food service customers across the country to create and produce a wide variety of private label branded products.

Overview: The National Account Manager is responsible for the development/management/ execution of a strategic growth plan for Trophy Foods that aligns with critical areas of focus for the Western Canada.

Key responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Perform detailed competitive trade analysis of competitive marketplace to identify pricing opportunities and threats, competitive activity, quality of customer execution across locations, and account service levels, priorities and size of prize.
• Maximize customer partnership collaboration through ensuring strong levels of communication between the customer decision makers and internal Trophy stakeholders and account support.
• Manage/monitor actual execution/programming on a timely basis to understand sales performance vs plan, capitalize on incremental sales opportunities, and eliminate/mitigate sales target obstacles.
• Project manage/coordinate commercialization of new product development (NPD) process in consultation with Trophy NPD team for private label products (customer facing & internal stakeholders) in order maximize customer expectations and trophy profitability/operational efficiency.
• Represent Trophy Foods at trade association events.
• Partner/collaborate with customer category teams to influence, design and execute product initiatives that will achieve customer objectives and Trophy opportunities (private label and brand where applicable).
• Develop a thorough understanding of customer: needs/challenges/private label and branded category strategy (innovation/merchandising/programming) / operation metrics/regulatory and policies.
• Reduce non-compliance fees where applicable.
• Define and deliver against a 3-year business plan meeting monthly, quarterly, and annual sales revenue and profit targets.
• In consultation with the Director of Sales, partner with customer decision makers and internal stakeholders to:
• Ensure clear and timely communication to internal stakeholders in order to maximize opportunities, business intelligence, operational flexibility/productivity, and inventory liquidity.
• Incorporate the use of analytics/ fact-based business/category/channel insights.
• Achieve no less than 98% fill rates.
• Execute defined pricing strategy.
• Execute monthly financial/KPIs/performance reporting to the Director of Sales.
• Customer point person on direct product simplification and standardization.
• Model strong work ethic and carry yourself as an ambassador of Trophy Foods.
• Ownership of all product related matters (listings/forecasting/costing/service levels).
• Develop the overall commercial strategy for customer (s) account.
• Lead all negotiations related to contract, programming, pricing, and customer strategy.

Experience, Qualifications, and Educational Requirements:

• University / College Business graduate or equivalent working experience.
• Managing the matrix, proven track record of aligning cross functional internal resources in order to meet existing and new product introduction customer needs.
• Demonstrated negotiation/category decision maker, customer diagnostics, and large account multi-level category & private label management experience.
• Proven capability of coaching, developing, and performance managing direct reports.
• Private label and branded sales experience
• Minimum five (5) years’ experience in the consumer-packaged goods (CPG) sector working with “A” level National Accounts. Minimum 3 years’ experience representing CPG with Western Canada customers.
• Demonstrated forecasting experience involving products with a finite shelf life.
• Bilingual (French & English) an asset.
• Strong knowledge of Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
• The position location is in Vancouver British Columbia due to location of key customers. Regular travel within Western (Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba) is required to partner/enable growth with customers within the western provinces.
• Presenting information clearly and effectively.