Food Technical Manager 

£50,000 - £60,000 plus great benefits (Work Level 5) 

Manchester city centre, with national travel

in this role you’ll work in a hybrid way – splitting your time between home, supplying sites and the office (1-2 days per week). You’ll also have the opportunity for both UK and global travel to our suppliers (find out more about our hybrid working policy at colleagues.coop.co.uk/hybrid-working-policy)

As part of an exciting growth period, we’re looking for a Technical Manager to join our Food Technical Team at Co-op, leveraging your expertise to help shape the future of our food technical strategy and drive innovation across the business. You’ll be part of a fast-paced, forward-thinking team dedicated to delivering safe, legal, and high-quality food that not only meets, but exceeds, the expectations of our customers.

You’ll work within our Produce team, in a highly passionate, driven and supportive environment. Managing a variety of fantastic responsibly sourced products, their growers and suppliers. We’ll look to you to grow and build lasting relationships with external partners, constantly look at ways to proactively manage risk, ensure compliance and drive continuous improvement and innovation.

You’ll support our team aim of ‘Delivering safe, authentic, sustainable supply chains, as we strive to make a positive impact for growers, customers, the environment, and our Co-op. 

What you’ll do

• Make sure produce is safe, of a high quality and meets legal requirements.
• Own and drive the quality specification of Co-op brand produce, utilsing your ability to network and build strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders including working in partnership with suppliers, growers, and category colleagues to make sure quality is defined and measurable.
• Develop, implement, and maintain collaborative strategic plans with your internal partners to deliver benefit to category and customer.
• Manage supplier performance by driving compliance to quality, safety, legal and ethical policies and processes; you’ll proactively address under-performance within Groceries Supply Code of Practice (GSOP) guidelines at all times.
• Complete assessments of the supply base to make sure we use suppliers and growers that align with our policy requirements and meet customer expectations.
• Build and maintain relationships with internal and external partners to create a positive impact and influence within the industry.
• Interpret data with the supply and category team to understand innovation and influence categories moving forward.
• Identify and deliver shelf-life improvements, efficiencies, and value chain opportunities in the supply base to support the category commercial strategy.

This role would suit people who have

• A Food Tech or Food Science degree, or equivalent technical experience with a retail, hospitality, food services or manufacturing 
• Food Safety Qualification - HACCP/ GMP/ Hygiene
• Strong understanding of microbiology and nutrition, relevant product knowledge and experience of delivering safe, legal, responsibly sourced, quality products to the customer 
• Agronomic expertise and practical knowledge of good agricultural practice, systems, and implementation  
• Willingness to travel nationwide or internationally for site visits
• An understanding of the operational side of food retail
• Proven experience of building strong relationships with both internal and external partners 
• Great communication skills at all levels

Why Co-op? 

If you have the skills that we need, we can offer you a competitive salary and great benefits package which includes 30% off Co-op branded products in our food stores (as well as other discounts on Co-op products and services).

• An annual bonus (based on personal and business performance)
• 28 days holiday (rising to 32 with service) plus bank holidays 
• A pension with up to 10% employer contributions
• Private healthcare for you
• Access to a subsidised onsite gym (at our Manchester HQ)
• Coaching and training to support your career development
• Wagestream app – giving you access to a percentage of your pay as you earn

At Co-op, we’re proud to do things a different way. As one of the world’s largest co-operatives, owned by millions of members, community is at the heart of what we do. Since our Co-op was founded in 1844, we’ve had a clear social purpose, and everything we do as a business helps to build a fairer world for our members, customers, colleagues, and communities. 

Building a diverse environment

At Co-op, we’re proud to do things a different way. As one of the world’s largest co-operatives, owned by millions of members, community is at the heart of what we do. Since our Co-op was founded in 1844, we’ve had a clear social purpose, and everything we do as a business helps to build a fairer world for our members, customers, colleagues, and communities.

We’re actively building diverse teams and we welcome applications from everyone. If you have a disability, we can make reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process according to your needs. We're also part of the Disability Confident scheme, meaning we'll always offer an interview to disabled candidates who apply through the scheme if they meet the minimum criteria for a job.

We'll ask whether you’d like to be considered under the Disability Confident scheme when you apply.

If we invite you to take part in the recruitment process for any of our jobs, we’ll ask you if you need any reasonable adjustments to enable you to participate.

You can find out more about our recruitment process at jobs.coop.co.uk/apply-process.

You can find out more about the Disability Confident scheme and all our commitments to diversity and inclusion at colleagues.coop.co.uk/diversity-inclusion-and-wellbeing.

As part of your application, you'll need to complete an online assessment. This assessment typically takes between 45-60 minutes. If you're a current Co-op colleague, this does not need to be completed.