Commercial Manager - Fresh Produce

Henderson Brown Recruitment; Colne; Hybrid; GBP 65,000 - 75,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

bonus

matched pension

life assurance

private medical cover

health cash plan

Job summary

Henderson Brown Recruitment is helping a Cambridgeshire-based produce business recruit a Commercial Manager to own three major UK grocery accounts with full P&L responsibility. The role is hybrid: 3 days on site, 2 days from home, offering £65,000–£75,000 plus benefits and bonus.

You will drive customer relationships, account plans and the trade strategy across NPD, planning and operations. You will be the customers’ sole point of contact and owner of performance, combining commercial judgment

Qualifications

• Must own three major UK grocery accounts with full P&L responsibility.
• Strong forecasting and financial analysis skills to drive margin and trade plans.
• Experience in fresh produce preferred and a track record of commercial decision-making.

Responsibilities

• Own the commercial performance of your three accounts end-to-end.
• Manage P&L including margin, forecast, and trade plan investment.
• Develop account plans covering NPD, range, and end-to-end initiatives to grow sales and profits.
• Oversee range changes and successful launches of initiatives.
• Leverage sales, stock, availability and waste data to inform decisions.
• Monitor market share, drivers, and waste issues to protect performance.

Skills

P&L ownership

Account management

Forecasting & analytics

Excel proficiency

Tools

Excel

Job description

A commercial role where you own three major grocery accounts outright - full P&L, not a slice of someone else's.

Commercial Manager - Fresh Produce

Cambridgeshire

Hybrid: 3 days on site / 2 days working from home

£65,000 - £75,000 + benefits, bonus

Permanent

The Opportunity

We're supporting a well-established produce business with the appointment of a Commercial Manager.

This is one of the larger commercial seats in the business. You'd take on multiple major UK grocery accounts, with full profit and loss responsibility across all three - the customer relationship, the account plan, the trade plan and the numbers behind them.

It isn't a support role underneath a senior account lead. You are the customer's point of contact and the person who owns the performance.

Two things worth knowing early: customer visits average around once a fortnight, and there's a one-in-five weekend cover rota shared across the commercial team. That rota is phone-based - being reachable if something breaks down, not working the weekend.

Key Responsibilities

You'll own the commercial performance of your accounts end to end, working closely with NPD, technical, planning and operations to deliver it.

• Build and develop the customer relationships that sit behind sales and profit delivery.
• Own the P&L for your accounts, including margin, forecasting and trade plan investment.
• Build account plans capturing NPD, range and end-to-end initiatives, and grow sales and profit within them.
• Manage range and NPD/EPD changes through to successful launch.
• Use sales, stock, availability and waste data to drive decisions that benefit both sides.
• Stay close to category and market performance - market share, sales drivers, waste issues and underperforming lines.

What We're Looking For

You’ll be an established Commercial Manager, Senior National Account Manager or National Account Manager from food manufacturing, with genuine P&L ownership rather than sales responsibility alone.

Fresh produce experience is the strong preference here. Broader chilled FMCG on its own is less likely to land, simply because the pace, seasonality and waste dynamics of produce are the hardest part of the job to learn on the move.

Beyond that, it's commercial judgement, comfort with detail and the confidence to hold your own across an internal business. Strong Excel and analysis genuinely matter - forecasting, availability, stock and waste are the substance of the role, not reporting after the fact.

Why Join?

This is real ownership. Three significant grocery accounts, a meaningful share of the business's turnover, and a direct line between your decisions and the commercial result.

You’d be joining a long-established produce supplie - a business with serious manufacturing capability behind it and long-standing retail relationships in front of it.

The package is £65,000 - 75,000 with benefits, including bonus, matched pension, life assurance, private medical cover and a health cash plan, with hybrid working of 3 days on site and 2 from home and no fixed office days.

• bonus
• matched pension
• life assurance
• private medical cover
• health cash plan