Job Title: Cost Control Manager – Food Manufacturing
Industry: Food Manufacturing / Bakery / Pastry / FMCG
Job Summary
We are seeking an experienced Cost Control Manager to lead and strengthen the costing function for a food manufacturing operation specializing in bakery, pastry, sweets, and related products.
The role will be responsible for establishing accurate product costing, monitoring production costs, analyzing variances, controlling inventory-related costs, and identifying opportunities to improve margins and operational efficiency.
The ideal candidate must have strong hands-on experience in manufacturing cost accounting, preferably within the food, bakery, pastry, confectionery, or FMCG industry.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead the factory’s cost control and product-costing activities.
- Develop and maintain accurate standard costs for raw materials, labor, packaging, and manufacturing overheads.
- Calculate and review product costs using recipes, Bills of Materials (BOM), production yields, and routing data.
- Monitor actual production costs against standard and budgeted costs.
- Analyze material, labor, overhead, purchase-price, usage, yield, and production variances.
- Review food costs, wastage, spoilage, production losses, and consumption patterns.
- Monitor inventory valuation and reconcile raw materials, work in progress, finished goods, and packaging materials.
- Ensure accurate allocation of direct and indirect manufacturing costs.
- Analyze product, category, customer, and channel profitability.
- Identify cost-saving opportunities without compromising product quality or operational standards.
- Support pricing decisions through accurate cost and margin analysis.
- Partner closely with Production, Supply Chain, Procurement, Warehouse, Sales, and Finance teams.
- Participate in physical inventory counts and investigate stock and consumption discrepancies.
- Prepare monthly cost reports, dashboards, forecasts, and management presentations.
- Support budgeting, forecasting, month-end closing, and management reporting.
- Improve costing policies, internal controls, reporting tools, and ERP costing processes.
- Provide management with clear recommendations to improve margins and factory performance.
Qualifications and Experience
- Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related field.
- Professional certification such as CMA, CPA, ACCA, or SOCPA is an advantage.
- Minimum 7 years of relevant experience, including strong experience in manufacturing costing or cost control.
- Proven experience in a factory or production environment is essential.
- Experience within food manufacturing, industrial bakery, pastry, confectionery, or FMCG is strongly preferred.
- Strong knowledge of standard costing, BOM costing, inventory valuation, variance analysis, and manufacturing overhead allocation.
- Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel and ERP systems.
- Experience with SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, Odoo, or similar systems is preferred.
- Strong analytical, problem-solving, and business-partnering skills.
- Ability to communicate financial insights clearly to operational and senior management teams.