Range Innovation Manager - Kibble & Blends

Greater London, England, United Kingdom

12/20/2024

Develop and manage an innovative range of kibbles that work together to create our unique tailor-made kibble blends.

Changing the world of pet food for good

We’re Tails.com, a dog food subscription company with a big difference. We create truly tailored food for each and every dog we serve. We start by asking people a few simple questions about their dog. Then we use that information to create their dog’s unique Tails.com recipe – so their dog gets exactly the nutrition they need, in the taste they love, delivered to their door every month. It’s clever stuff.

We’ve got bold plans. Having created an entirely new category in pet food, we’re now scaling fast in the UK and Europe – backed by Purina, one of the world’s largest pet food companies. You’ll join a bunch of smart people working towards the same goals – and a bunch of smart-ish dogs, all working on their own thing.

Together, we’ll change the world of pet food for good.

Be a part of the Brand and Proposition Group

As a team we work together to deliver a powerful proposition and brand rooted in customer and market insight. We always have a deep understanding of dogs and dog owners, their needs and what they value. And we use this understanding to drive how we optimise and innovate our unique proposition in a holistic way, ultimately building a compelling and enduring brand.

Build our brand

We’re building an international brand, fast. We set ambitious goals. We challenge and support each other in equal measure. At the pace we’re moving, we prefer to test ideas and learn quickly rather than spend months building a business case. That means we celebrate when things go right, and we learn when things go wrong.

Sound like a team you want to join? Here’s how you’ll make a difference:

The role

As a Range Manager you will ideate, develop and launch innovative physical products that drive value. But this is not your average range manager type role; you aren’t just responsible for developing a compelling range of kibbles but ensuring they work together in harmony to create tailor-made blends out of a million possible combinations. It requires someone who can comfortably bounce between the big picture vision of crafting the perfect range and the detailed complexity of how our nutritional and technology systems work. #itscomplicated but we know the right person for the role is out there somewhere.

You will be responsible for:

• Accountable for the management and innovation of our D2C kibble range, ensuring the product we've designed is meeting the customer need
• Lead on Range activities for kibble NPD/EPD as defined by the NPD process. Including but not limited to:
• Gather market & customer insight for opportunity pitches
• Commercial sizing to inform business case
• Partner with digital to define ideal customer journey
• Lead business cases and collaborate on creative and marketing briefs
• Facilitate innovation and range planning events to initiate new opportunity identification
• Understand gaps and exploit opportunities by blending market, category and competitor knowledge with consumer insight to develop a category range strategy and a pipeline of new opportunities
• Drive insights and research agenda in support of range planning and positioning
• Partner with pricing team to optimise margin and value of the range
  
  

The skills you’ll bring:

• Experience in physical product innovation, category management, or a similar role within consumer goods
• Adept at interpreting complex data and systems to identify trends, derive actionable insights, and support strategic decision-making
• A confident communicator, who can explain ideas, issues, and implications to senior, technical and non-technical audiences
• Experience in developing compelling business cases, storytelling and conceptualising the big picture
• Strong commercial acumen complemented with a results-driven orientation
• Can build effective and collaborative cross functional relationships
• Thrives in a high-energy, agile, fast-paced environment with some level of ambiguity
• Able to manage short term deliverables in parallel to developing long term strategic thinking
  
  

Ideal experience but not required:

• Experience working in the pet or nutrition industry
• Experience in a business that sells or manufactures food products that claims nutritional benefits
• Experience working for an e-commerce and/or subscription business
• Experience working with technical R&D and quality teams
• An understanding of digital product design principles
  
  

What's in it for you?

• Competitive salary, reviewed annually
• Annual bonus, based on company performance
• Flexible core hours, giving you true work life balance
• Hybrid role to ensure this role works for you
• 25 days of holiday (excluding bank holidays) which increases over time to a max of 27 days
• 9/10 day working week to enhance your wellbeing without a reduction in pay and leave allowance
• Optional 5 days unpaid leave and 1 paid volunteer day each year
• When you need a change of scenery, you can work from abroad 2 weeks every 6 months
• Health insurance for you, paid by Tails.com
• Extended maternity, paternity, shared parental and adoption pay. 6 months at 70% pay
• Flexible paid care leave to support immediate dependants, people close to you and pets
• In house L&D team, with access to year round courses to help drive your development
• 50% discount on all Tails.com
• Discounted gym membership
  
  

Our Commitment

We’re proud to be an active equal opportunity employer. We want to give everyone a fair chance to join us in changing the world of pet food for good. We do this by conducting a structured recruitment process for all candidates, as well as actively promoting our roles to communities that are under-represented at Tails.com.

During your interview process you’ll meet some of our team with varying levels of responsibility and experience. We want to give every candidate a fair interview process and if you need any reasonable adjustments made, please let us know.