Category Manager - Arby's

IRB USA Inspire Resources; Atlanta (GA); On-site; USD 95,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Inspire Brands seeks a Manager of Menu Category Management to drive next-generation menu innovation for Arby’s and partner brands. Lead cross-functional teams to develop strategic menu opportunities, refine products, and optimize launches across channels in a fast-paced environment.

You will partner with Culinary, Analytics, Supply Chain and Marketing to quantify opportunities, test ideas, and deliver compelling business cases.

Qualifications

• 4-year bachelor’s degree in business administration, marketing, management, or related field.
• 3+ years of menu strategy experience in multi-unit foodservice chains.
• Strategic thinker with the ability to inspire big ideas.
• Innate curiosity to derive consumer and business insights.
• Strong business acumen and leadership.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills with clear business terms.
• Ability to summarize insights in concise PowerPoint calls to action.
• Collaborative and able to motivate across ops, supply chain, field, and marketing.
• Self-starter who can manage multiple projects and meet deadlines.
• Leadership, sales support, project management and training skills.
• Understanding of development and testing processes.
• Active listening and attention to detail.

Responsibilities

• Create and refine short and long-term menu strategies via innovation, renovation and deletions to meet objectives.
• Partner with Culinary to develop core and limited-time products with cross-functional teams for launch.
• Lead test plans and evaluation through launch, recommending path forward for brand and franchisee alignment.
• Collaborate with Consumer Insights and Brand Analytics to translate trends into actions.
• Align with Brand Experience and Commercial Group on pricing, promotions, and calendar across channels.
• Analyze core menu performance across restaurant and digital channels to identify optimization opportunities.

Skills

Strategic thinking

Leadership

Communication

Project management

Collaboration

Business acumen

Presentation skills

Problem solving

Influence

Education

Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Marketing, Management or related field

Job description

The Manager, Menu Category Management will drive the next generation of menu innovation at Arby’s. They will join a team of food-forward marketers who get satisfaction from creating and executing legendary big ideas on the national restaurant stage. This role requires the ability to identify and refine opportunities for game changing menu strategy, innovation, and reinvention within current and future menu categories/products. This role reports to a Sr. Manager, Category Management. At Inspire Brands we are relentlessly focused on growing a company filled with of Mavericks, Allies, Visionaries, Achievers, and Good Citizens.

Responsibilities

• Create, define and refine short and long-term menu strategies via innovation, renovation and deletions in order to meet and exceed brand and business objectives.
• Partner with the Culinary team to create, develop, optimize and qualify new core menu and limited time products. Partner with cross-functional teams such as Operations, Analytics, Supply Chain, Training, Insights, and Marketing in the development, qualification and launch process.
• Lead the development of test plans and evaluation through launch of new products – evaluating results and developing recommendations on path forward for brand and franchisee alignment
• Partner with the Consumer Insights and Brand Analytics teams to gather information to understand current customer and growth target needs, market trends, competitive landscape, product screener results, positioning and product testing to develop recommendations based on prioritized areas of focus
• Partner with cross-functional teams, including Brand Experience and Commercial Group, on pricing, promotion, calendar needs, and positioning recommendations across channels
• Analyze ongoing performance of the core menu across channels (at the restaurant and in digital channels) to identify opportunities to optimize

Requirements

• 4 Year Bachelor’s degree in business administration, Marketing, Management or another related field.
• 3+ years working in menu strategy for multi-unit foodservice chain(s)
• Ability to think strategically to inform and inspire big ideas
• Innate curiosity to derive consumer and business insights
• Possess strong business acumen and leadership skills.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, especially the ability to explain difficult concepts and insights in applicable business terms.
• Strong ability to summarize insights into PowerPoint presentations in clear and understandable calls to action.
• Ability to collaborate and motivate across the operations, supply chain, field, and marketing teams.
• Self-starter with the ability to project manage and handle multiple assignments simultaneously and meet all desired deadlines.
• Strong leadership, sales support, project management and training skills.
• Understanding of how to take products or programs through a development and testing process.
• Effective problem-solving skills and ability to listen and translate details attentively.

Inspire is a multi-brand restaurant company whose portfolio includes more than 33,300 Arby’s, Baskin-Robbins, Buffalo Wild Wings, Dunkin’, Jimmy John’s, and SONIC restaurants worldwide. We’re made up of some of the world’s most iconic restaurant brands, but we’re much more than just a restaurant company. We’re a team of hundreds of thousands who individually and collectively are changing the way people eat, drink, and gather around the table. We know that food is much more than a staple—it’s an experience. At Inspire, that’s our purpose: to ignite and nourish flavorful experiences.

Inspire is a multi-brand restaurant company whose portfolio includes more than 33,400 Arby’s, Baskin-Robbins, Buffalo Wild Wings, Dunkin’, Jimmy John’s, and SONIC restaurants across 55 global markets. In an industry facing increasing disruption, our leaders saw an opportunity to build a restaurant company unlike any other – one that brings together differentiated yet complementary brands and aims to make them stronger than they would be on their own. Found inherently in the purposes of our family of brands, we identified a common thread between our restaurants – the capacity to inspire. From guest experience to career development to community well-being, Inspire plays a role in the lives of millions of people every day. Our brands are diverse, distinctive, and fan favorites. In a sense, you could say we seek those who provide something different than the norm.