Procurement Assistant – EU Operations, Service and Quality

Job description

On the 2 nd July 2018 Unilever completed the sale of the Spreads Business and it is now under the new ownership of KKR as “Upfield”, therefore any successful applicants will be employed by “Upfield” not Unilever. For more details on Upfield, please click here .

Do you know your Kale from your Quinoa or the difference between a Flexitarian to a Regenerative Grazer? We are looking for top talent for an exciting new movement within the Food Industry.

About Upfield!
Upfield is a global leader in plant-based nutrition with a great history and a portfolio of iconic brands that people have used and trusted for generations. This includes Flora, Rama, Becel, Blue Band, Country Crock, I Can't Believe it's not Butter and ProActiv.
We are a global food company with 6 business units operating in 95 markets. We have the mind-set of a start-up. This makes us fast, agile, entrepreneurial, cost conscious and accountable for our products – from seed to serving at the breakfast, lunch or dinner table.
We take quality seriously and around the world we taste products every 30 seconds. We take our consumers seriously and more than 150 people will taste test each of our new innovations before they hit the shelves.

Your Role
Support Procurement Manager – EU Operations, Service and Quality in driving supplier quality and service improvements and supporting Upfield Sourcing Units and other teams with supplier quality and service issues.

Key Responsibility Areas:
· Support Procurement Manager – EU Operations, Service and Quality
· Act as a key contact towards the Oils and Fats and other raw and pack materials towards factories regarding in time delivery, quality and supplier service
· Support developing supplier quality and service levels, tracking and analyzing supplier performance data and propose priorities for performance improvement and follow up monitoring actions.
· Investigate the market trends and offerings and implement specific supplier relationship management strategies tailored to the business needs
· Monitor overall performance of the supply network and ensure continuous improvement
· Manage service and quality performance scorecards, monitor supplier quality trends and help to prioritize critical supplier focused improvement initiatives to prevent/predict supplier shortfalls
· Participate in complexity reduction projects (e.g. harmonization of specifications and suppliers) and resilience projects
· Support in execution of cost savings and deployment of innovation agenda at global and regional levels
· Partner with finance team to ensure timely payments in case of the delays
· Drive the implementation of Upfield's Sustainability agenda in Procurement area
· Represent Upfield at the relevant Industry Bodies

Skills and Experience Required:
· Higher professional education / university degree
· Proven and relevant track record in Procurement and/or Supply Chain for at least 2-3 years within a multinational company
· Experience on large-scale change management projects and in international assignments is an advantage
· Exemplify a high degree of personal integrity and interpersonal, negotiation, influencing and stakeholder management skills.
· Proficient in both verbal and written communication
· Enjoy working in a virtual and multicultural working environment

Reporting Channel, Contacts and Travel:
· Procurement Asisstant – EU Operations, Service and Quality reports into the Procurement Manager – EU Operations, Service and Quality
· Internal: Procurement Global and Cluster teams, Supply Chain teams, R&D team, Legal team, Marketing team, Finance business partners
· External: Suppliers: Commercial management and Top management (CEO's) of Key Suppliers, Agents, professional organization, industry bodies and 3PM, NGO's, advisors and benchmarking organizations and others
· Travel globally for Supplier meetings, Industry meetings, project meetings and team meetings. Travel intensity as per job requirements

Your Personal Power!
At Upfield we want you to bring your ideas, your motivation and desire to succeed! This part of the role is up to you to complete.

Culture
We are a highly entrepreneurial fast-paced team running a multi-billion Euro business across 60+ countries with the mind-set of a start-up! We are agile, creative, fast-to-market and obsessed with customers and consumers.
If you are an entrepreneur at heart and have a passion for winning, a strong understanding of the CPG business, ad would like to join us, apply and speak to one of our Talent Matchmakers!

Interested in this role?
Your application will be reviewed against our requirements and we will be in touch shortly to provide you with an update on the status of your application. Candidates who have applied can access their status update through the candidate tracking link or, for any additional queries, by contacting recruiter Sjors van Aert via

For internal candidates: by applying for this vacancy, you are confirming that you have made your Line Manager aware of your application and that you are at a point in your career with Unilever where it is appropriate for you to be applying for other positions.