Customer Demand Planner (Fixed Term Contract opportunity)

Yeo Valley Farms (Production) Ltd; Highbridge; On-site; GBP 80,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading organic dairy company in the UK is looking for a Customer Demand Planner to join their planning team in Highbridge. This role requires building and maintaining demand forecasts and managing customer relationships effectively. The ideal candidate will have experience in demand planning, strong analytical skills, and be a confident communicator. The company offers a fixed-term contract and a range of benefits including a non-contributory pension scheme and learning opportunities.

Benefits

25 days + bank holidays

non-contributory pension scheme

annual bonus based on company performance

life cover

healthcare cash back plan

cycle to work scheme

subsidised products and services

preferential rates with partners

learning and development opportunities

Qualifications

• Experience in demand forecasting with financial understanding.
• Experience in chilled food manufacturing or short shelf life products.
• Knowledge of Supply Chain operations and Demand Planning, ideally in FMCG.
• Experience with supply chain and demand planning systems.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain effective demand forecasts at customer level.
• Manage customer supply chain relationships and lead reviews.
• Ensure events and promotions are reflected in sales forecasts.
• Collaborate with internal stakeholders for service and accuracy.

Skills

Attention to detail

Confident communication

Relationship building

Positive attitude

Education

Degree or equivalent professional qualification

Tools

Power BI

Smartsheet

Microsoft Office & Teams

Job description

So, what will I be doing?

At Yeo Valley, we're more than just an organic dairy company – we're a community rooted in the land, committed to sustainability, and passionate about producing quality food that nurtures people and planet. We're looking for a Customer Demand Planner to join our planning team, based at Acorn House, Highbridge. This opportunity is for a Fixed Term Contract until February 2027.

In this exciting and fast paced role, you'll be instrumental in building great relationships with your customer demand teams. This is a great opportunity for someone with demand planning experience, or transferrable skillsets, looking for an exciting new position.

Using business intelligence and forecast information from our sales and marketing teams and your customers, you'll build, develop and maintain the accurate volume forecast for our production sites.

You will need an open and flexible approach to building great relationships with your customer demand teams, including collaboratively working across Head Office (HQ) and operations.

Key responsibilities will include:

• Building, developing, and maintaining effective accurate demand forecasts at customer level
• Managing and building strong supply chain customer relationships, and leading customer supply chain reviews, focusing on forecast accuracy, service, availability and waste reduction
• Representing the business in demand planning & supply reviews with your customers, ensuring great service and collaborative communication of shortages
• Ensuring that all events, launches, delists, range changes, promotional and marketing activities are effectively reflected in the sales forecast
• Utilising forecast accuracy analysis to develop and improve forecast accuracy at customer and product level for ourselves and our customers
• Working collaboratively with internal stakeholders including account management, production planning, marketing and logistics to ensure great service and forecast accuracy
• Closely coordinating and communicating customer action plans, sharing key insights and information with the production planning teams

Sounds interesting, what do I need?

The important things:

• Eye for detail and good with numbers!
• Confident communicator
• Building relationships
• Positive, can do attitude

Even better if you have:

• Understanding of demand forecasting with an appreciation of the financial impacts
• Chilled Food manufacturing/short shelf life experience
• Good knowledge of Supply Chain operations and Demand Planning, ideally in FMCG supporting retail partners and/or supply chain qualification
• Degree or equivalent professional qualification
• Experience of Supply chain and demand planning systems
• Experience in other software packages – Power BI, Smartsheet, and Microsoft Office & Teams

Why should I join the family?

We’re independent, British and proud to be making the highest quality yogurts, desserts and ice cream under the Yeo Valley brand and for many of the UK’s major retailers. Operating from four dairies and two logistics centres in Somerset and Devon, we employ over 1700 staff and produce more than 25% of the UK’s packaged yogurt.

We’re sure you don’t need convincing, but there’s a whole host of benefits that we offer including:

• 25 days + bank holidays
• non-contributory pension scheme
• annual bonus (as part of the Employee Benefit Trust, based on company performance for the year)
• life cover
• healthcare cash back plan
• cycle to work scheme
• subsidised Yeo Valley products and services
• preferential rates with our partners
• learning and development opportunities; we’re committed to ensuring all of our employees have the chance to grow

Our closing dates are a guide for when the application window should close, although we may close the advert sooner if we can. So, we recommend you get your application in straight away – and don’t miss the opportunity to join us!

Unfortunately, we’re not able to provide employment sponsorship to candidates at this moment in time.

Please note that Yeo Valley do not accept speculative agency applications; we will only accept applications from preferred suppliers that have been submitted to us via our recruitment portal at the point of instruction.