Supply Partnerships Manager

Reporting to the Head of Quality & NPD, the Supplier Partnerships Manager is responsible for building and managing strategic relationships with suppliers of key raw materials, including proteins, grains, vitamins, minerals, functional ingredients, additives and packaging materials alongside 3rd party manufacturers. This role ensures that our raw materials and outsourced finished goods meet the company’s nutritional, safety, regulatory and sustainability standards.

The Supplier Partnerships Manager oversees supplier performance across quality, service and feed safety. They play a key role in long-term planning, new product development ingredient sourcing and risk mitigation.

This position requires a strong understanding of the pet food industry’s regulatory environment, raw material markets and animal nutrition needs. The Supplier Partnerships Manager drives continuous improvement with suppliers, identifies opportunities for innovation and works in close collaboration with the Purchasing team to ensure the company maintains a competitive and resilient raw material supply chain whilst maintaining quality, nutritional and feed safety standards.

Role responsibilities include:

• Develop and maintain long-term partnerships with raw material suppliers, including meat and poultry suppliers, agricultural producers, premix and blend manufacturers and specialty ingredient vendors
• Maintain regular communication with all raw material suppliers, including supplier visits, on-line meetings and supplier audits (based on risk assessment) to include producing detailed and concise contact reports after all meetings with clear documented action plans
• Conduct business reviews, performance evaluations and collaborative improvement initiatives
• Ensure alignment of supplier capabilities with production needs and product innovation goals
• Identify savings opportunities, alternative ingredient strategies and supply optimization whilst assessing quality, feed safety, nutritional and operational impact of changes
• Monitor and track supplier performance on quality, service, on-time delivery and feed safety metrics
• Work with suppliers to conduct root cause analysis of raw material quality issues and agree plans to prevent re-occurrences. Ensure non-conformances are closed out effectively and on-time

Skills and requirements:

• Excellent organisational and communication skills
• 5+ years of experience in procurement, supplier management, or supply chain, preferably in food, pet food or ingredients supply
• Strong knowledge of raw material categories relevant to pet food e.g., meat meals, fresh and frozen proteins, grains, functional additives, vitamins and minerals, fats, and oils
• Experience and expertise in various meat industry ways of working, animal anatomy, slaughter process, animal welfare and raw material handling
• Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities to identify trends or areas for improvement