Ethical Food Company is dedicated to supply Ethical Fresh Produce for everyone. Born out of being at the forefront of organic supply in the UK, our journey started over 30 years ago sourcing and supplying organic fresh produce to UK consumers and remains at our heart. Our expertise, passion and knowledge of organics ensures we source from the best growers around the world to supply a wide range of consistent, high-quality products, ethically sourced via efficient supply chains.

This firmly sits alongside our overall purpose and values to maximise our social impacts whilst minimising our environmental ones. We now have an opportunity for a Product Manager to join us based at Teynham.

The purpose of the role is to take overall responsibility of product management through the 3rd party facilities and actively support the delivery of the business short- and long-term growth strategy. To be always professional and operate in a manner that reflects the company’s values. You will mainly be looking after Top Fruit but yo will be required to look after other products.

Personal & the Business objectives:

• Working with the SPM, Head of Technical and Ethical Sourcing (HoT) and team to achieve assigned business and personal objectives within the agreed time scale
• Assist the EFC HoT in matters appertaining to product safety, quality, and legality
• Work closely with PMs and wider EFC team to deliver the POD strategy
• Deputies for SPM

Ways of Working

• Project a positive image to colleagues, customers, and suppliers in all interactions
• Ensure operational excellence by helping maintain a culture of efficiency, individual responsibility and effective communication
• Ensure ISS adherence to the Service Level Agreement (SLA) and manage ISS in an effective, and collaborative manner whilst supporting the overall requirements & objectives of the EFC business
• Ensure that the customers required quality standards are always understood and effectively maintained and communicated throughout 3rd party sites
• Take active involvement in decision-making against any problematic stock
• Assist the other EFC product managers as required and support them in their task as required
• Provide cover for all other PMs and deputise in the absence of the Senior Product Manager
• Take active involvement in decision making in the daily/weekly meetings
• Ensure regular and ongoing feedback to suppliers and your EFC colleagues on product quality to allow for continuous improvement
• Effectively liaise and communicate on day-to-day quality issues with ISS
  

Working with Operations

• Take responsibility for stock allocation as instructed by Senior Product Manager and Procurement Managers Support the commercial team in the claims process at ISS/FWC and 3rd party facilities
• Take responsibility for product ripening in conjunction with ISS ripening team
• Manage product quality throughput the ISS facility
• Undertake a daily site walk to ensure that standards are maintained for all areas falling under your responsibility. This should include a review of the quality of old stock, class III, over-packs & miss picks, organic segregation, and food safety. Make recommendations on product utilisation through the correct written communication channels
• Liaise and ensure that all the UK 3rd party sites handling and packing products for the EFC group, have full support and guidance from the product management team in all aspects relating to our supply to our customers. Although not an exclusive list, this will include harvesting, packing standards, and labelling
• Manage site-walk to ensure that standards are maintained for all areas falling under your responsibility. This should include a review of the quality of old stock, class III, over-packs & miss picks, organic segregation, and food safety. Make recommendations on product utilisation through the correct written communication channels
• Ensure that ISS production delivers to the EFC and customer specifications with regards to product quality, legality, safety, and packaging
• Re-inspect returned product and create a utilisation plan as required
• Through continuous improvement, facilitate and support the development of improved processes to deliver improved KPI performance
• Liaise with ISS QA team daily packing performance
• Provide recommendations daily for correct stock utilization to minims losses. This can be depot-specific if required
• In conjunction with the EFC sales team assist orders and amend as necessary

Working with Technical/ Commercial teams

• Assist in the preparation of various samples, conduct trials and trend collected data
• Support the Compliance Technical Manager on delivery residue- and micro-testing schedule, this will include timely coordination of the sample collection
• Assist in collating on-site product traceability and mass balance in accordance with EFC requirements
• Assist with supplier and customer visits in the absence of the Senior PM
• Assist in maintaining the BRC, TFS, Organic and Ethical standards on site and support delivery of the EFC internal audit schedule
• Select specific stock for ISS to pack for weekly validation sampling
• Monitor and actively analyse product quality and shelf life alerts vs estimated yields/intake reports. Provide continual guidance for the ISS team
• Assess the daily finished good report and investigate any excessive losses
• In conjunction with the commercial and technical teams re-inspect raw material as required
• Conduct taste panels as requested and trend the data
• Evaluate the dwell time reports and make recommendations around stock usage in conjunction with allocations
• Actively support the EFC operating ethically agenda
• In conjunction with the ISS QA, accurately investigate the reasons for all rejections and report outcome and CAP to the technical team by 08:00 the following day if the rejections occurred overnight and on the same day if they occurred during ‘normal’ working hours. Ensure that further rejections are avoided

Product management

• Work to the PCL strategy to support the category delivery at the assigned product level Conduct supplier and grower visits within the UK and abroad if required by the business. Create visit reports to include corrective actions and communicate with the business
• Ensure through correct product utilisation and close monitoring of stock levels and quality, that wastage is minimised on all products and profit is maximised. Review performance weekly
• Assist in the completion of the label sheets and new line forms (pack labels and barcodes). Understand and update the progressive ID process for products in your remit
• Assist the relevant teams in completing the end-of-season reviews documenting overall quality, improvements required, ranking, and next steps 
• In conjunction with the ISS team deliver a 95% accuracy on QA reporting on lines within a +/- 5% tolerance
• Ensure that the wholesale business units receive focus and support from the product management team and the EFC service providers