Channel strategy & sales manager, food service

Come join the Tillamook Team, one of the fastest-growing dairy brands in the US, where we Play to Win to create over 200 dairy products in 6 different categories: cheese, ice cream, yogurt, sour cream, butter, and cream cheese. Our Uncompromising Quality has led us to become the #1 Cheddar, #2 Cream Cheese and #3 Family Size Ice Cream brand, but we’re not stopping there. We’re loading up for our best years to come and want you to join us.

As a farmer-owned cooperative since 1909, we know that being Good Stewards for our stakeholders and doing a little extra always pays off. We’re looking for team members with a One Team and Genuine Care mindset who are inspired to share the delight of the Tillamook brand with each other and others every day.

What you will do:

The Channel Strategy & Sales Manager, Food Service is responsible for shaping and implementing customer and market strategies required to grow TCCA's sales in the traditional foodservice channel. They lead both the development and implementation of the traditional foodservice sales strategy, gaining cross-functional buy-in on the channel objectives, and working with the Sales Director of Foodservice to ensure that there are clear goals and measures in place to track performance.

They will act as the lead for all traditional foodservice sales, owning key accounts and working with our foodservice broker to drive growth with our broader customer base. They must provide clear direction to broker partners, distributors, and key internal stakeholders on the requirements needed to deliver the channel business objectives, and track sales performance.

They are responsible for developing sales growth plans and key account customer strategies, that take a multi-year view of account growth. They must ensure there is a sufficient sales pipeline to achieve expected growth outcomes. They will work with the Sales Director on performance reporting to track progress against sales plans.

The Channel Strategy & Sales Manager, Food Service is responsible for managing trade spend within their channel, partnering with the Revenue Growth Management (RGM) function and the Sales Operations Manager (SOM) to optimize trade spend within the traditional foodservice channel.

This Channel Strategy & Sales Manager, Food Service also acts as the primary external-facing representative of Tillamook in the traditional foodservice channel, leading and advising on our engagement in trade shows and other industry/customer events.

They are expected to have their finger on the pulse of traditional foodservice market trends, leveraging these insights to develop impactful customer selling stories, and feeding them into the business to support evolution in our go-to-market approach.

This is a high-impact role, which requires a strategic brain, strong cross-functional collaboration and a passion for customers and growing sales with a premium portfolio of foodservice offerings.

Must be based in Mountain or Pacific time zones (our priority growth markets) and be able to travel up to 30%.

Here’s a day in the life:

• Channel Strategy: Lead the development of the Traditional Foodservice Channel Strategy with support from the Foodservice Sales Director. Ensure buy-in from cross-functional stakeholders. Develop implementation plans and work with Sales Director to build clear objectives, goals and measures linked to the overarching channel strategy.
• Customer Management: Own key account relationships, including negotiating pricing agreements, pursuing growth opportunities, and issue resolution. Build strategic account plans, leveraging market and customer insights to build multi-year growth plans. Conduct sales calls, and build customer relationships beyond purchasing/procurement functions.
• Pricing & Trade Management: Develop pricing strategies guided by customer segmentation, partnering with the Sales Director and Revenue Growth Management (RGM) to ensure trade spend is optimized across traditional foodservice accounts. Manage contract renewals, negotiating pricing with both new and existing accounts. Calculating trade impact of pricing deviations and ensuring they are reflected in trade management systems.
• Business development: Identify new sales opportunities with both existing and new accounts, guided by strategic priorities and market insights. Attend trade show and industry events to build brand awareness and prospect for new accounts.
• Broker engagement: Lead engagement with Broker’s chain and field sales teams. Engage with Market Directors to ensure clarity on sales priorities, and hold quarterly reviews to ensure progress against priorities. Train and enroll broker sales team on TCCA product knowledge as required. Transition lower priority accounts to be broker-managed.
• Distributor engagement: Work with distributors at a regional level to support sales outcomes and reduce barriers for customers to access our product. Identify distribution gaps and make recommendations to the Sales Operations Manager (SOM) on how to close them.
• Market intelligence: Gather market intelligence from customers, industry events, market visits, and published sources. Leverage insights to inform sales plan. Where possible gather competitor insights. Act as trusted internal specialist on the traditional foodservice channel.
• Performance reporting: Work with Sales Director to develop sales forecasts and track performance. Explain variations in sales performance. Contribute to lead and opportunity management reporting.
• CRC commercialization: Support Ingredients Channel Lead with CRC sales into foodservice channel as required, including opportunity identification and coordination on new customer set-up, forecasting.

Knowledge, skills, and abilities:

• 5+ years of foodservice sales experience.
• Broker management experience preferred.
• Deep understanding of foodservice supply chains, distribution networks, commercialization and menu development strategies.
• Demonstrated success with developing effective sales presentations in both corporate and less formal foodservice sales settings.
• Strong financial acumen and analytical skills, able to translate market insights into sales tactics and/or account plans.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Ability to thrive in a remote work environment and work well with remote teams.

Industry leading benefit and reward programs:

We offer outstanding benefits to our employees. For more information, please visit the careers page: www.tillamook.com/careers.

We are committed to creating a culture of inclusion where all employees are heard, valued and feel a sense of belonging. We rely on different perspectives, thoughts, backgrounds and cultures to inform our work, to help us be better as a brand and as an employer and to fuel our success. We are seeking talent from a wide range of diversity, perspectives, and backgrounds to join our exceptional organization and help us build our future.

Tillamook County Creamery Association (TCCA) is a Drug-Free Workplace. EEO TCCA prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type and affords equal employment opportunities to employees and applicants without regard to age, race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender or gender identity, disability status (including those related to pregnancy and childbirth), protected veteran status, membership/non-membership in a labor organization, or any other characteristic protected by law.

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